Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) is planning to develop a new combined-cycle power plant at Jorf Lasfar.

The utilities company has invited consultants to submit proposals for plot selection and technical feasibility studies for a new planned combined-cycle power plant, which would be located 3km from the existing Jorf Lasfar port.

No indication of the size of the plant has yet been provided to interested companies.

The existing coal-fired power plant at Jorf Lasfar was the first project to be developed as an IPP in Morocco. It was built by the US’ CMS Generation in 1998 before being taken over by Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) in 2007.

In May 2009, Taqa signed an agreement for an expansion of the plant that will take the number of units from four to six and add 700MW in new capacity to the 1,356MW facility. The contract to carry out the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) works was awarded to Japan’s Mitsui and South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering & Construction in 2011.

The new combined-cycle power plant will be one of a number of major energy projects that ONEE is planning at Jorf Lasfar. The utilities provider is also planning a major $4.6bn gas-to-power project at the location. MEED recently reported that ONEE had awarded a technical consultancy contract to a joint venture of France’s Sofregaz and Denmark’s Ramboll for the gas-to-power scheme.