# Solar extraversion: incumbent interests, foreign capital and the making of Morocco’s megaproject strategy

**Authors:** Moritz Schmoll, Jason Miklian, Kristian Hoelscher
**Published in:** *Globalizations*, 1-21, 2026
**DOI:** [10.1080/14747731.2026.2726683](https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2026.2726683)
**Canonical URL:** https://miklian.org/papers/solar-extraversion-incumbent-interests-foreign-capital-moroccos-megaproject-strategy/
**Licence:** CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
**Full text (PDF):** https://miklian.org/papers/solar-extraversion-incumbent-interests-foreign-capital-moroccos-megaproject-strategy/fulltext.pdf
**Funding:** Norwegian Research Council, grant number 325586

## Abstract

Solar energy is widely expected to decentralize electricity production but lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) governments can opt for centralized megaprojects instead. In Morocco, decentralized generation and self-production is legalized, but the state, foreign donors, and private investors instead prioritized the Noor Ouarzazate complex, the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant. We argue that this outcome is better explained by the political economy of the power market than predispositions of authoritarian or centralized states. Incumbent producers and distributors and their institutional relays blocked reform within a fragmented state lacking adjudication mechanisms. Megaprojects offered the returns of strategic ‘extraversion’: concessional finance and geopolitical standing mobilized for domestic ends, though these returns proved fragile. Against the dichotomy of ‘authoritarian environmentalism’ and ‘energy democracy’, we propose a national-scale political economy sitting between global capital and local impact, and show that the scale of evaluation shapes what counts as success.

**Keywords:** renewable energy, Morocco, decentralization, solar, national development, geopolitics

## Key Messages

- Between 2010 and 2023 the Moroccan parliament passed five laws enabling decentralized generation (13-09, 38-16, 48-15, 82-21 and 40-19). The implementation decrees were withheld until June 2026.
- Incumbent producers and distributors defended their revenue, and the Ministry of Interior, a more powerful ministry than the Ministry of Energy, is named as a key source of the blockage on self-production. Opening the grid to high-voltage renewable production by private actors is said to have caused a drop of 30 to 40 percent in ONEE’s sales.
- The Moroccan state holds no unified and coordinated position on decentralized solar. In everyday governance there is no institutional pilot adjudicating between MASEN, ONEE and the ministries of Finance, Energy and Interior.
- Three concentrated solar power plants and one photovoltaic plant built between 2013 and 2018 make up the 582 MW Noor Ouarzazate complex, the largest CSP installation in the world, backed by $2.5 billion in funding from international lenders.
- The returns of strategic extraversion proved fragile. MASEN’s deficits and debt grew, production at Noor was halted for costly repairs, and MASEN head Mustapha Bakkoury was relieved of his duty in March 2021.

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## Citation

Moritz Schmoll, Jason Miklian, Kristian Hoelscher. "Solar extraversion: incumbent interests, foreign capital and the making of Morocco’s megaproject strategy." *Globalizations*, 1-21, 2026.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2026.2726683

## About the Author

Jason Miklian is a Research Professor at the Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo. ORCID: [0000-0003-1227-0975](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1227-0975). Full publication list: https://miklian.org/papers/