Middle East

With pressure mounting on the world’s governments to turn their back on the fossil fuel, China and peers in South East Asia, Europe and South Asia could help deliver a coal-free future at the COP26 climate summit planned in Glasgow in November.

With the Dabdaba/Al-Dibdibah solar field now having been combined with the Shagaya clean energy development, bids for the former’s EPC contract were reportedly received last week. It is unclear whether the facility will have a generation capacity of 1 GW, 1.5 GW or ‘up to 3 GW.’

A year after a sudden explosion in Beirut killed more than 200 people, destroying solar installations in the port and sending the country into a complete downfall, a question emerges: Can Lebanon use this experience to set its economy on a new sustainable pathway, supported by a viable energy sector? Solar energy offers some lessons.

An independent third-party has approved the European Commission’s safeguards to ensure the projects in member states financed by €250 billion of green bonds over the next five years, will have genuine emission reduction credentials.

The Al Husainiyah solar plant, 200km south of Jordanian capital Amman, began commercial operations a week ago with more than 200,000 panels manufactured by 30% joint owner Philadelphia Solar.

TotalEnergies plans to build a 1 GW solar plant near the port of Basra, in southern Iraq.

Scientists have demonstrated a zinc-ion battery that overcomes many of the challenges for this technology. By working with a highly-concentrated salt solution as the electrolyte, the group was able to achieve stability over more than 2,000 cycles combined with a strong electric performance. The group says that its work opens up “a viable route to developing aqueous batteries for emerging electrochemical energy storage applications.”

Under development by Chinese conglomerate Power China, the project will initially have a capacity of 750 MW.

Acme Solar said the facility would use 3 GWp of solar and 0.5 GWp of wind energy to produce 2,400 tons of green ammonia daily and approximately 900,000 tons annually. Construction is planned in phases with an investment of $3.5 billion over the next three years.

Most of the generation capacity – around 190 MW – was deployed in the emirate between September 2019 and March 2021.