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For a country like Morocco with 3,000 hours of sun per year, totally depending on imports for its energy needs seems like a paradox. Being aware of such a situation, Moroccan authorities aimed to benefit from renewable sources of energy to produce at least 10% of the country’s energy needs by 2010. Within this framework, the Moroccan Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) launched PROMASOL in 2002 to promote the market of Solar Water-Heaters (SWHs) in Morocco through quality improvement and certification, awareness raising campaigns, and training and certification of qualified solar water-heaters’ installers.

The program management was entrusted to the Center for Development of Renewable Energies (CDER). Thanks to the active contribution of some partners such as UNDP, the French Global Environment Facility (FFEM), the Autonomous Government of Andalusia, and the Italian Ministry of Environment, PROMASOL has had definite impacts that have gone much farther beyond the mere objective of contributing to the reduction of the country’s dependency on fossil energy. PROMASOL has increased the number of SWH from about 35,000 m2 of solar panels in 1998 to more than 240,000 m2 in 2008, and the number of companies importing and/or manufacturing SWHs from about five to more than 40. In terms of its social results, the program has contributed directly to job creation through the training and certification of 200 installers, and indirectly through the creation and/or expansion of specialized companies. It is also expected to create about 13,000 new jobs by 2020. PROMASOL has managed to avoid about 1.3 million tons of CO2 emissions since its inception in 2002, and is expected to reduce about 920,000 tons of CO2 per year until 2020.