my innovation journey starts inland, south of morocco s major cities and mighty atlas mountains, just north of the sahara desert, near the quiet outpost of ouarzazate. this part of saharan morocco is known as the door of the desert. the landscape out here, it s almost like it s from another world. feels like we could be on mars. these plains receive three times the sun as parts of northern europe. ..and are home to a world leading project of staggering scale. this is noor, a solar power station, putting morocco at the forefront of pioneering renewable technology. i m used to feeling small, but this makes me feel even smaller. hello, abed, salam. hello, my friend, salam. nice to meet you. nice to meet you, too. this is incredible! and lots of sun. lots of sun, yeah. which is what we want for something like this. yeah. this is not an ordinary solarfield. panels with over 7,000 mirrors follow the sun. and i can hear lots of sounds at the moment. it s quite eerie. is that the pan
Ha ha! wow! i ve never seen anything quite like this! wow! 0h, cool! it s a bit like a giant carwash. and i m about to get very wet, if i don t move out of the way. this is a lot of water, but left unwashed, reflectivity could drop by more than 20%, so a fleet of these beasts do nightly rounds, scrubbing into the early hours. so, as loud and as exciting as this is, it is actually doing very important work, keeping these solar panels sparkling clean, so they can generate as much electricity as possible.