Middle East

An international consortium led by Omani oil company OQ is planning a 25 GW wind-solar complex to produce green hydrogen in the central region of the Middle Eastern country. The clean fuel could be consumed on-site, used to produce green ammonia, or exported to other markets.

The 1.2 GW, Covid-delayed third round of the kingdom’s clean power program is back up and running, despite the fact the top news story on the relevant government department’s website is dated April 2020.

Turkish researchers have developed a cooling technique in which water is sprayed via an air-assisted external mixing flat fan nozzle. The system can produce smaller droplet sizes to ensure the even distribution of water on panels.

It’s claimed the decentralized desalination system can deliver a levelized cost for desalinated water of US$0.7-4.3/m3, depending on PV costs and electricity prices. It was built with several concentrated photovoltaic/thermal (CPV-T) collectors, a hot water tank, a V-MEMD module, a seawater feed tank, and a distillate tank.

According to official statistics from grid operator TEIAS, the country added around 400 MW of PV capacity in the first four months of 2021.

The cell features an open-circuit voltage of 1.1 V and a short-circuit current of 26 milliampere per cm-2, which the research team described as the best performance for an inverted perovskite cell based on single-crystal methylammonium lead triiodide. The device was built with a microns-thick absorber layer placed between an electron transport top layer and a hole-transport bottom layer.

The manufacturer says it shipped 1.69 GW of its inverters in the first three months of the year and predicted a further quarter-on-quarter rise in revenue from the current window.

Although the government last month started offering purchase incentives for residential batteries, a net metering regime which is in place for solar households means there is little to prompt PV owners to splash out more on storage.

The first phase of the procurement exercise is expected to be finalized by the end of the week. The record low bid, for Turkey, was submitted for a 10 MW project in the Antalya region, in the sunny southern part of the country.

The $18bn worth of sustainable finance instruments floated in the nation last year marked a retreat from previous highs but, with most of the bonds issued from July onwards, the recovery is under way, according to the IFC, which is anticipating a more-than-$100 billion sector in emerging markets over the next three years.