Benguerir: OCP Powers Up Morocco’s First Large-Scale Battery Storage System

he Benguerir mining site has received the kingdom’s first large-scale battery storage system. OCP Green Energy, the energy arm of the OCP group, has powered up an installation there of 25 MW for 125 MWh, five hours of discharge, attached to the site’s photovoltaic plant. The technology chosen is lithium iron phosphate, supplied by Envision at the end of a qualification process and contracted in late 2025, for an investment close to 170 million dirhams covering the equipment, the batteries and all the integration works. Energizing it opens a phase of performance testing before commercial operation: the installation is to carry the day’s solar output over to peak hours and lighten the site’s electricity bill by 25% across those windows.

Storage was the missing piece. OCP Green Energy already runs 202 MWp of solar capacity spread over three sites (67 MWp at Benguerir, 30 MWp at Foum Tizi and 105 MWp at Oulad Fares, near Khouribga), whose output until now followed the course of the sun rather than the needs of the washing plants and the factories. The African Development Bank had opened the way in February 2024, signing with the group a $20 million loan from the Clean Technology Fund intended for storage systems at its production units. The general manager of OCP Green Energy, Omar Kadir, presents storage as the natural extension of the group’s energy strategy. With an estimated lifespan of 25 years, the Benguerir installation will tell what green electricity is worth, at industrial scale, once one can finally choose the hour of its use.

Photo: Solox44, CC BY-SA 4.0.