Morocco's Floating Solar Panels Save Water and Power Dams

Morocco just found an elegant solution to two crisis-level problems at once: disappearing water and growing energy demand.

Researchers at two Moroccan universities discovered that floating solar panels on the country's 58 major dams could slash water evaporation while generating massive amounts of clean electricity. The dams currently lose 909 million cubic meters of water every year to evaporation under the North African sun.

The findings show that covering just 1% of Morocco's dam surfaces with floating solar panels would make a meaningful dent in the country's electricity needs. Scale that up to 40% coverage, and those same dams could theoretically meet Morocco's entire national electricity demand.

Professor Aboubakr El Hammoumi, who led the research, says saving water might actually be more urgent than generating power. Morocco has been hammered by prolonged drought, and water reserves have dropped sharply over the past decade compared to previous years.

"Water conservation could arguably constitute the strongest immediate policy argument for floating solar deployment, particularly for reservoirs experiencing significant hydrological stress," El Hammoumi told PV Magazine.

Morocco's government is already pursuing large-scale desalination plants as its primary response, targeting 1.7 billion cubic meters of desalinated water production annually by 2030. The water ministry has called floating solar an important gain given increasingly scarce resources.

The country isn't just studying the idea. A pilot project at the Oued Rmel reservoir near Tangier is already operating with more than 400 floating platforms supporting several thousand panels. That installation is expected to reduce evaporation at the site by around 30% while meeting 14% of the nearby port complex's energy needs.

A second pilot project in Sidi Slimane features around 800 panels generating an estimated 644 megawatt-hours annually. Both projects are testing how well the technology performs in real-world conditions.

The Ripple Effect

The dual benefit of floating solar creates a powerful multiplier effect. Every square meter of panels generates electricity while simultaneously preventing gallons of water from disappearing into the atmosphere. For a drought-stricken nation, that's conservation meeting innovation at exactly the right moment.

The technology also works with Morocco's existing pumped hydro storage facilities, which can store solar energy by pumping water uphill during peak production hours. The country already operates two pumped storage stations and could integrate floating solar output into that system.

Morocco still needs to build out the regulatory framework and procurement models before floating solar can scale up dramatically. The projects currently operating haven't yet produced enough long-term data to prove out financial models or operational costs under fluctuating water levels.

Morocco is racing toward a target of 52% renewable energy in its electricity mix by 2030 and just broke ground on a massive 305-megawatt solar program in March. Floating solar could become a key piece of that puzzle while addressing the water crisis threatening agriculture and communities across the country.