Search

The world's attention is currently focused on the energy transition to sustainable energy. The drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming, energy security, and the generalization of access to energy have contributed to the adoption of the Moroccan Energy Strategy, with a strong focus on renewable energy (RE). Morocco is notoriously poor in conventional primary fossil energy resources, with energy dependence on the order of 90%. In addition, the energy crisis that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts, compounded with steady increase in demand, has heavily affected the security and stability of the country's energy situation. The transition to RE by strongly engaging in the implementation of several solar, wind, and hydro energy projects has made the country the leader in RE in Africa. These projects benefit from the country's excellent solar and wind energy potential. As a consequence, by 2030, the share of RE in the installed capacity is expected to reach 52%. An overview of the current situation of RE (particularly solar energy) in Morocco is provided, including the potentials, obstacles, challenges, and future perspectives. Thanks to its high solar potential, it is predictable that Morocco's effort will be focused on this field: the Erasmus plus INNOMED project is a virtuous example of international cooperation, aiming at promoting solar energy through capacity building and the creation of solar energy networks, in synergy with EU Partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance the thermal characteristics of a solar collector storage system, this study investigates the performance of a rectangular thermal energy storage (TES) tank by incorporating cascade phase change materials (cascade‐PCMs). Three different commercially available PCMs (RT44HC, RT54HC, and RT62HC) with distinct melting temperatures are employed. These cascade‐PCMs are utilized as slabs in vertical rectangular modules, which are integrated into the water TES tank. The heat transfer fluid (HTF) in the flat‐plate solar collector captures solar energy and transfers it to the TES tank, where it is stored as latent thermal energy. A two‐dimensional (2D) numerical model, utilizing the enthalpy‐porosity approach and conservation equations, is developed to analyze the melting and heat transfer processes within the TES tank. The model is validated against previous experimental and numerical data. Performance evaluation of the cascade‐PCMs tank is conducted during a 9‐h charging period (from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm) under Marrakesh weather conditions in Morocco. An optimization study is carried out to determine the optimal height of each cascade‐PCM. The results suggest that an optimal design with heights of 23, 16, and 11 cm for RT44HC, RT54HC, and RT62HC respectively, offers improved melting and storage quality. The thermal characteristics of the TES tank incorporating cascade‐PCMs are compared to those of a TES tank filled with a single phase change material (single‐PCM) during the charging period. The findings indicate that the cascade‐PCMs achieve complete melting, while the single‐PCM only reaches a melting fraction of 0.903 at the end of the charging process. Furthermore, the optimal configuration of the cascade‐PCMs storage tank exhibits slightly higher sensible and latent thermal energy storage capacity compared to the single‐PCM tank. The combination of the solar collector with the cascade‐PCMs storage tank results in a 3.47% higher average collection efficiency when compared to the single‐PCM tank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to study the performance of a cascade solar still as a function of the variation in solar intensity and the thickness of the glass cover. In this context, the present work examined different cities of Morocco; however, Tetouan (north of Morocco), Oujda (west of Morocco), Casablanca (east of Morocco) and Ouarzazate (south of Morocco) were targeted. In addition, the effect values of 3, 5 and 7 mm glass cover thicknesses were studied. The effect of these parameters on the water productivity of the inclined cascade solar still was performed by simulation using ANSYS-FLUENT software. The simulation model was successfully validated using the experimental data available in the literature. The results show that the absorber plate temperature and the hourly productivity of the inclined cascade solar still with a glass cover thickness of 3, 5 and 7 mm, under the climatic conditions of Ouarzazate region, reach maximum values of 78; 75 and 71 °C and 1.78; 1.58 and 1.26 kg/m2 per hour at 2 pm, compared to other regions. The results of this work show that the new design of the inclined cascade solar still with a minimum thickness of the glass cover in a region with a higher solar intensity increase the temperature of the absorber plate, causing an increase in the thermal energy inside the solar still, resulting in a rapid increase in water evaporation, whissch has the role of increasing the production of distilled water compared to other types of solar still. On the other hand, the economic analysis of the studied system shows that the cost of distilled water does not exceed 0.0093$/L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morocco faces tremendous climate constraints; the climate is hot and dry in most parts of the country, and when selecting an energy-saving approach, the architectural landscape becomes essential. Designer and building professionals seem to have neglected this large-scale integration. Sustainable development programs in terms of sustainable architecture are ongoing in countries around the world. One part of this trend is the growing concern shown in the high environmental efficiency of vernacular architecture. It is within this prescriptive framework that this research study is being conducted, which reveals novel architectural style integrating thermal comfort, energy efficient characteristics, passive solar elements architecture, and construction techniques inspired from the vernacular Ksourian architectural configurations. The goal of the present research study is to identify features of energy efficient vernacular architecture and thermal performances that affect indoor thermal comfort conditions for adaptation to current lifestyles in modern architecture. The key characteristics developed are; built mass structure, building orientation, space planning, availability of sunspace, building techniques, and new coating materials for manufacturing and roofing. The suggested methodology enables to analyze the thermal performance analysis, applying an experimental research using experimental testing measurement and comparative optimization processes for thermal efficiency and comfort evaluation of a traditional vernacular earthen house. Series of experimental thermophysical characterization measurements have been carried out in order to quantify on a real scale the thermophysical properties that characterize the Rissani earth. Thus thermophysical characterization results are operated as input data for the thermal dynamic simulation for the purpose to evaluate thermal performances and comfort under the weather conditions and control natural comfort in both summer and winter, without using heating or cooling systems. Ultimately, the simulations carried out make it possible to identify the optimal orientation, revealing an effective decrease in interior temperatures during summer and providing good thermal comfort in winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accurate estimation of a concentrated solar power plant production is an important issue because of the fluctuations in meteorological parameters like solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind speed, and humidity. In this work, three models were conducted in order to estimate the hourly electric production of a parabolic trough solar thermal power plant (PTSTPP) located at Ain Beni-Mathar in Eastern Morocco. First, two analytical models are considered. The first analytical model (AM I) is based on calculating the heat losses of parabolic trough collectors (PTCs), while the second analytical model (AM II) is based on the thermal efficiency of PTCs. The third model is an artificial neural networks (ANN) model derived from artificial intelligence techniques. All models are validated using one year of real operating data. The simulation results indicate that the ANN model performs much better than the analytical models. Accordingly, the ANN model results show that the estimated annual electrical energy is about 42.6 GW h/year, while the operating energy is approximately 44.7 GWh/year. The frequency of occurrence shows that 86.77% of hourly values were estimated with a deviation of less than 3 MW h. The developed ANN model is readily useable to estimate energy production for PTSTPP. • Two analytical models and an ANN model are presented and compared to predict the electrical energy of a PTSTPP. • The first PTSTPP constructed in Morocco is presented and utilized for the test. • The ANN model performed marginally better than the analytical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work is aimed at investigating the thermal performance and the economic feasibility of an indirect solar dryer of wood integrated with thermal energy storage system. The proposed dryer system is composed of a drying chamber, a solar air collector and a packed-bed energy storage (PBES) system. A new numerical model is developed for investigating the thermal performance of the dryer system and numerical simulations were performed using TRNSYS software. A comparative study between measured and predicted results shows a good agreement and the obtained maximal Relative Error (RE) for the drying time prediction is about 2.49%. Annual dynamic simulations were carried out under the new climatic zoning of Morocco and the effect of some design and operation parameters on wood drying kinetic is presented and discussed. Results obtained show that integrating one m3 of PBES into the dryer system leads to continue the wood drying process during a small part of the off-sunshine hours and to reduce the drying time by about 15%. The payback period of the dryer system is reduced by about 33% in Tangier site by using the storage system. Maximal amount of produced dried wood is obtained during the summer period for all Moroccan sites and the most suitable location of the dryer system is zone 6 with a payback period equal to 1.85 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Integration of Small Parabolic Trough collectors (SPTC) in Hybrid thermal energy production system for bitumen heating maintaining process. • Optimization of the proposed hybrid SPTC-fossil fuel-thermal storage system through thermal energy flow management. • Defining an innovative strategy of optimization with different double-objective function. • Combining trial and error method, multi-nodes method and genetic algorithm to resolve and optimize the equations system obtained from the proposed system modelling. • Optimized results are provided for different thermal storage capacities. Solar energy integration in heat consuming processes is a promising replacement for fossil energy. We are interested in a small Solar Parabolic Trough Collectors field combined with a sensible heat storage reservoir. Unfortunately, such a system has a higher cost than fossil energy and is challenging to optimize. Therefore, this work's main objective is to provide an optimized design and management to minimize energy cost (EC) and maximize renewable energy utilization fraction (REF). This study is done by optimizing the sizing and the thermal energy flow management of a hybrid solar-fossil fuel energy system. The optimization problem is formulated based on mass and energy conservation equations, heat transfer phenomena modeling, correlations, and economic data. We resolved it by combining trial and error method, multi-node calculation procedure, and genetic algorithm. To evaluate our method, we studied a hybrid solar-fossil fuel energy system used for the bitumen heat maintaining process in Rabat region-Morocco. The evaluation considered different thermal storage capacities. Using our optimization, we reached REF ≥ 40% and EC < 0.05US$/kWh for small thermal capacities and REF ≥ 85% and EC less than 0.2US$/kWh for large thermal capacities. This is equivalent to saving, respectively, more than 0.75 and 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions/year/kW for small and large thermal storage capacities. Other important recommendations are also provided in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work reports the design, numerical modeling, and optimization of a new solar water heater using a heat pipe parabolic trough collector (HPPTC) with low concentration ratio. The heat pipe evaporator is positioned on the focal axis of the reflector, while the condenser section is completely immersed in the water cylindrical tank. The copper wire mesh wick is used as the capillary structure, and the working fluid is distillated water. The proposed model operates in transitory regime under the weather conditions of Casablanca city in Morocco. The intensity of direct solar radiation was estimated by the Kasten model assuming a total sun tracking. The finite difference method has been used to solve governing equations. Several optimization types have been investigated and proved that the optimal configuration is obtained by correctly choosing the geometrical and physical parameters of the system. The thermal efficiency for this configuration with a single heat pipe is about 68.45%. This high performance show that the incorporation of a heat pipe as absorber in a PTC may be a better alternative than conventional heating systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo ofrece información sobre varios cursos académicos, talleres y conferencias organizados por el Movimiento por la Paz (MPDL), incluyendo el Curso de Voluntariado y Red Ciudadana por la Paz el 28 y 29 de septiembre de 2011, la Jornada Nacional de Cooperativas para desarrollo local el 26 de septiembre de 2011 en Alhucemas, Morocco, y un curso sobre la energía solar térmica para jóvenes entre febrero y mayo de 2011 en Granada, España.