The proposed $30 billion Sila Atlantik project, which aims to provide Germany with renewable energy from Morocco through an undersea power link, has stalled due to disagreements over its structure and guarantees, Reuters reported.
The project emerged after Britain’s withdrawal last year from support for the £25 billion Morocco-UK electricity interconnection, prompting Xlinks to turn to Germany to keep the initiative alive.
The plan involves laying a roughly 4,800-kilometer undersea transmission line along the Atlantic coast to deliver up to 15 gigawatts of wind and solar power from southern Morocco to Germany.
This comes as Germany seeks reliable clean energy to replace coal and nuclear power, making the Moroccan project timely.
If completed, it could become one of the world’s largest cross-border renewable energy projects and make Morocco a key supplier of renewable energy to Europe.
The two high-voltage direct current (HVDC) subsea cables are expected to provide around 5% of Germany’s annual electricity demand, harnessing Morocco’s strong trade winds and high solar potential, supported by battery storage, the British company said.
Citing two Moroccan and two German sources familiar with the matter, Reuters said that the project is being held up because Moroccan authorities want a formal intergovernmental agreement from Germany to ensure long-term government support.
It added that Rabat also wants the connection to allow electricity to flow in both directions, rather than operate solely as an export link, a demand that a German source told Reuters is technically feasible but would be more costly.
It also reported that while Morocco had committed around 150,000 hectares of land in the southern Guelmim-Oued Noun region to the Xlinks project, the same allocation has not yet been approved for Sila Atlantik.
The company told Reuters that the project is still evaluating the best technical and regulatory options for its long-term development.
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