Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE) has invited companies to submit bids for the front-end engineering design (Feed) contract for three planned hydroelectric plants.

The hydroelectric facilities, which are planned to be located at Imezdilfane, Taskdert and Tajemout, will have a total combined capacity of about 128MW. The Feed contract will involve providing designs for the three hydroelectric plants and dams.

Companies have until 7 September to submit proposals for the Feed contract.

The projects are part or Morocco’s efforts to signficantly increase the proportion of renewable energy sources in its power sector. Rabat has set an ambitious target of 42 per cent of power generation to come from renewable energy sources by 2020. This is scheduled to include a total wind power capacity of about 2,000MW.

In March this year, ONEE selected a consortium led by Italy’s Enel Green Power as preferred bidder for the 850MW independent power producer (IPP) wind programme in Morocco. The developer consortium, which also contains the local Nareva Holding and Germany’s Siemens, is expected to spend $1.1bn to develop the wind power facilities