Desertec Industrial Initiative has announced this year’s best papers in their “Best Paper Award” competition.
One of the papers, by Angela Falconer and Gianleo Frisari of CPI Venice and Ca’ Foscari University is titled “Ouarzazate CSP I Morocco”. An executive summary is available here.
The authors discuss the financing of the concentrated solar power project in Ouarzazate in Morocco I have blogged about repeatedly, for example in this post last November about a $297 million World Bank loan for the project.
I learn from this paper that international finance institutions have contributed over $1 billion to the project, Morocco will invest another $883 million, and private equity will contribute $190 million at 14% return on investment.
Of course the money from the international finance institutions will come much cheaper, which lowers levelized cost of electricity by between 25 and 30 percent.