ACWA Power International, with 5% Spanish partners ARIES and TSC, has been awarded a $1bn contract to build a 160MW concentrated solar power plant near the desert frontier town of Ouarzazate, Morocco.

The Saudi energy company fended off bids from three other groups, including Abu Dhabi’s national energy company TAQA, by offering operational energy price 27% lower than the nearest bidder.

Announcing the winners, Mustapha Bakkoury, the head of Morocco's solar energy agency MASEN, said the project work would begin at the end of 2012, slated for completion in late 2014.

The project covers 2,500 hectares, and will implement a 500MW generation capacity at Ouarzazate in two phases.

The Ouarzazate solar plant is the first of five that Morocco plans to build by 2020 in order to add to add 2GW in solar generation capacity to its southern desert regions, or 38% of the country's overall capacity.

Morocco is ACWA’s 5th international market, and its 2nd in Africa after it secured a contract to build a 50MW CSP plant in Bokpoort, South Africa in May.

ACWA plans to make solar developments up to 5% of its business over the next two years.

MASEN is due to launch a further two 50MW tenders for Ouarzazate, one for a photovoltaic module and another for a CSP, both to be completed by 2015, according Bakkoury.

Saudi Arabia is planning 41GW of solar power itself, or a third of domestic consumption, by 2032, and $109bn has been slated for the work.

In line with this target, Hyundai started work on a $380m EPC contract to build Saudi Arabia's first polysilicon refinery in February in Jubail, to be operational by the first quarter of 2014.