Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite (ONE) has prequalified three groups for the tender for the 350MW pumped power transfer station project (STEP) planned in Abdelmoumen, located 70 kilometres northeast of Agadir in the Taroudant province.

The client relaunched the prequalification process in December 2014, having originally prequalified three groups in late 2013.

The three groups prequalified for the tender are:

• Abener (Spain) / Voith (Germany) / SGTM (Morocco)
• Vinci Construction Grands Projets (France)) / Andritz Hydro (Germany)
• Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea) / Toshiba Corporation (Japan)

The 350MW Abdelmoumen STEP will consist of two reversible turbine pumps, each with a generating capacity of 175MW and with a speed of 600rpm. The pumped power reservoir will have a drop of 540 metres, with a pump speed of 36 cubic metres a second.

The Abdelmoumen scheme will reinforce the existing 460MW STEP at Afourer, which has been operational since 2004. Morocco has received loans from the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank to fund the development of its hydropower programme.

The planned project will enable solar and wind energy to be stored, and will form part of Morocco’s ambitious plans to produce 42 per cent of its power through renewable energy schemes by 2020.