World Bank Middle East & North Africa Concentrating Solar Power Knowledge and Innovation Workshop

This is an interactive workshop aimed at providing an invited group of decision makers in government agencies and utilities from countries in the MENA region with an opportunity to share knowledge about the latest developments in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology, and its potential to contribute to the evolving needs of national energy systems.

The Program
The workshop
The presentations

About the Middle East & North Africa Concentrated Solar Power Knowledge and Innovation Program

For countries, like those in the MENA regions, with significant solar resources, CSP technologies offer great potential to meet national goals for clean, secure, and affordable energy. Like many new technologies, there are challenges in bringing CSP to market. So the World Bank, with support from the Clean Technology Fund, in late 2016 launched a Knowledge and Innovation Program to help lay the groundwork for new CSP investment projects in the Middle East and North Africa.This three-year Program is designed primarily as a resource to address knowledge and awareness gaps, to link projects with sources of finance and technical advice, and to promote innovation to enable CSP investments in MENA to move forward faster, and in more countries. The knowledge generated in MENA will also help to facilitate CSP investments elsewhere in the world, creating a virtuous circle of CSP investments and cost reductions through global economies of scale and learning.

More information (PDF)

Disseminating knowledge about Concentrated Solar Power across MENA

Speakers from leading institutions such as MASEN, NREL, IEA, ACWA, IRENA and international financial institutions, will share best practice and lessons learned on topics concerning the development of CSP projects, including:

experience in developing and managing national CSP programs,
status of CSP technologies and markets,
investment financing for CSP projects,
power system value of CSP compared to other technologies, and
industrial (non-power generation) applications of CSP.

Through engaging presentations and interactive round-table discussions, attendees will have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of CSP, ask questions to experts in the field, and share their own experiences and expertise.

The workshop includes a guided visit to the Ouarzazate Solar Complex (Noor I, II and III), where attendees will be able to see the largest CSP complex in the world.

This workshop will launch the MENA CSP Knowledge and Innovation Program funded by the Clean Technology Fund through the World Bank. Further workshops will be held from 2017 to 2019 under this program.

This workshop is by invitation only, but materials will be made publicly available. Please address any questions or comments to menacspkip@worldbank.org with CC to contact@menacspkip.com.