Moroccan know-how is contributing to the development of electric mobility on the African continent. The kingdom now has a production line for charging stations for electric cars. The unit has just been inaugurated in Benguerir, a town in the Marrakech-Safi region. The factory was developed and built by the Green Energy Park, a solar energy testing, research and training platform set up by the Institute for Research in Solar Energy and New Energies (Iresen).
100% Moroccan charging stations © Iresen
Green Energy Park worked on this project together with EDEEP, a company based in the Moroccan city of El Jadida. The project is supported by the Moroccan Ministry of Energy, Mines and Environment, as well as the Ministry of Industry, Trade and the Green and Digital Economy. “The iSmart production line enables the assembly of several components manufactured by Moroccan partner companies,” says Badr Ikken, Iresen’s Director General. According to this official, this line “will also be used for prototyping, pre-industrialisation and industrialisation of new technological products”.
What advances for electric mobility in Africa?
The new factory is capable of producing 300 iSmart charging stations per month, and aims to produce 5,000 stations per year by the end of 2022. These charging stations for electric cars are intended for the Moroccan and African markets. The launch of the new production line comes in an African context where electric cars are still struggling to become more widely available, as is the case with solar photovoltaic energy.
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This situation is due not only to the costs of these vehicles, which are still inaccessible to a large part of the population, but also to the unstable electrical networks and the lack of suitable infrastructure, especially in Africa’s Sahara region. But the development of electric mobility is beginning in some countries, notably Egypt. The country of the Pharaohs wants to set up an electric car assembly line, thanks to a partnership signed between the Egyptian car manufacturer El Nasr Automotive Manufacturing Company and the Chinese Dong Feng. In addition, electric bus lines are already open in the city of Cairo. At the same time, the authorities of this North African country are preparing a plan for the deployment of charging stations on highways and in cities.
Meanwhile, in Kenya, the Nopia Ride service offers electric taxis for travel in the capital Nairobi. In Cape Town, South Africa, people are benefiting from electric mobility with the recent introduction of two electric buses into the city’s fleet. These are all potential markets for the new iSmart charging stations.
Jean Marie Takouleu