Morocco's auto-production framework is now operational law. The evidentiary layer is not.

On LinkedIn today, I noted that Morocco's auto-production framework is often assumed to remain theoretical, a law without teeth waiting on implementing texts that never arrive. That assumption no longer holds since 9 June 2026. Law 82-21 on electricity auto-production, promulgated in February 2023, finally has its operational backbone: Decree 2-25-100 of 5 March 2026, published in Bulletin Officiel n° 7489, took effect that day alongside ANRE Decision n° 04/26 on surplus tariffs. Three regimes now apply by installed capacity, the 20 percent surplus resale cap is active, and installations already in service have an eighteen-month window to regularise. The framework works. What it does not yet do is give a Moroccan exporter a certified, bankable proof of green origin that travels cleanly into a CBAM declaration in Brussels. That gap, not the decree, is where the real work for counsel now sits.

The legal architecture, article by article

The regime is built into the law itself, not into the decree. Article 3 sets a simple declaratory obligation for any installation not connected to the national grid, regardless of size. Article 4 covers grid-connected installations below a capacity threshold that the decree fixes at 11 kW: these are declared to the relevant distribution operator before construction begins. Between that threshold and 5 MW, Article 5 requires a connection-approval agreement from the network operator. At 5 MW and above, Article 6 requires full authorisation from the administration, granted after technical opinion from the transmission operator.

Article 12 is the commercial hinge: the autoproducer may sell up to 20 percent of annual production as surplus to the network operator, at a tariff set by ANRE. Decision n° 04/26 has now fixed that tariff at 0.21 MAD per kWh during peak hours and 0.18 MAD per kWh off-peak, plus a distribution network usage charge of roughly 0.0607 MAD per kWh. That is the number that turns a solar rooftop from a cost-reduction exercise into a monetisable asset, and it is the first figure any financial model for a Moroccan auto-production project should now carry.

Article 33 is the one clause that deserves a careful read rather than a confident date. It grants installations already in service an eighteen-month window to file for regularisation, running "from the date of entry into force of the present law." Article 36, in turn, distinguishes the general entry into force of the law, three months after its publication in 2023, from the entry into force of provisions that required implementing texts, which only take effect once those texts are published. Practitioners have converged on reading the eighteen-month clock as running from 9 June 2026, since that is when the operative regime under Articles 3 to 6 actually became usable. That reading is sound, but it is an interpretation of how Articles 33 and 36 interact, not an explicit statement in the text. Any due diligence file should note the computation basis rather than simply cite a deadline.

Where the risk actually sits

None of this means an installation operating under the wrong regime today is automatically in breach. Articles 25 and 27 describe a graduated mechanism: formal notice, a window to comply, and withdrawal of authorisation only after that window lapses without action. The exposure is real, but it crystallises progressively, and fastest for installations that do nothing before the eighteen-month window closes. For counsel reviewing an existing portfolio, the practical task is not to declare every legacy installation non-compliant. It is to map each site against Articles 3 to 6 as now defined, and to flag which ones need a regularisation filing before the clock runs out.

The same discipline applies to contracts. An existing power purchase agreement or connection arrangement drafted before the decree deserves review against the new access, metering and surplus-sale rules. That is a review obligation, not an automatic requalification: a PPA does not become void or renegotiated by operation of law simply because the regulatory backdrop changed underneath it. Counsel should treat the decree as a trigger for a compliance audit of existing paper, not as an event that rewrites that paper on its own.

The CBAM dimension, precisely stated

The European side of this story needs more precision than a single headline date usually gets. The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive, financially binding phase on 1 January 2026: from that date, imports of cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen carry a genuine cost exposure tied to embedded emissions. But the mechanism through which importers actually purchase and surrender CBAM certificates was itself postponed, under the Omnibus Regulation (EU 2025/2083) adopted in October 2025, to 1 February 2027, covering emissions embedded in goods imported throughout 2026. The exposure is real from January 2026. The cash mechanics arrive thirteen months later.

For Moroccan exporters, the immediate consequence is evidentiary rather than financial. To use actual, rather than default, emissions figures for electricity under CBAM's methodology, an importer needs a credible chain of proof: a specific power purchase arrangement, a direct physical connection, hourly-metered consumption data, and third-party verification. A national registry of green-origin certificates would make that chain far easier to assemble and to defend on the EU side. Morocco does not yet have one. The Ministry of Energy Transition launched a call for expressions of interest on 1 April 2026, closed it on 1 June 2026 having received more than fifteen candidacies, and was, as of mid-June, still assessing the technical, financial and operational model before opening a formal procurement procedure. Until that registry exists, its absence does not by itself dictate how any given exporter's emissions will be calculated under CBAM. It does mean Moroccan operators are, for now, assembling that evidentiary chain deal by deal, contract by contract, rather than drawing on one recognised national instrument.

Five questions for any transaction review

Any pre-transaction or pre-investment review of a Moroccan energy asset should now be able to answer five things without hesitation. Which regime, under Articles 3 to 6, actually applies to the installation as built, not as originally designed. Whether the existing PPA or connection contract still holds up against the new access and metering requirements, and if not, what amendment it needs. How the 20 percent surplus ceiling is monetised in the contract, at what tariff, and against which ANRE decision. What evidence currently supports any renewable-electricity claim relevant to a CBAM declaration, in the absence of the national registry. And where, precisely, the eighteen-month regularisation clock stands for that specific installation, and on what reading of Articles 33 and 36.

The gap that remains

The auto-production regime itself is no longer the open question. It is operational law now, tested against a real decree and a real tariff decision, not a project under discussion. What remains open is the layer that gives that law commercial value outside Morocco's borders. Article 15 permits an autoproducer to build storage capacity and access storage services, but only under conditions still to be fixed by regulatory text, and that text has not yet been published. The certification registry that would let a Moroccan kilowatt-hour carry a recognised green identity into a European supply chain is still at the design stage, ahead of any tender. Morocco has closed its implementation gap. It has not yet closed its evidentiary one, and for exporters, that second gap is now the one worth watching.