United Arab Emirates

The tariff is around $0.0021 lower than the $0.0156/kWh French oil giant Total and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp offered in Qatar’s 800 MW tender in late January. French energy company EDF and Chinese solar company JinkoPower reportedly submitted the record bid in the UAE exercise.

The losers in a world which no longer runs on fossil fuels are obvious but the dividend from shrugging off hydrocarbon dependency will be spread around most of the world so it is the nations which are winning the cleantech manufacturing and intellectual property race which appear best positioned for the future.

Solar remains an interesting option to power water desalination despite obstacles to its widespread adoption. A recent study has highlighted the processing or dumping of brine waste as an important factor to consider.

Researchers in the United Arab Emirates have proposed a PV-powered irrigation system that runs on a fuzzy logic-based algorithm, with a remote-control wireless monitoring system interface.

The meeting planned yesterday to open the final bids by consortia vying to develop the 1.5 GW Al-Dhafra solar field in Abu Dhabi was reportedly postponed because coronavirus-related restrictions on public gatherings in the emirate. The chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy told pv magazine this year the project would bring a new low price for solar power.

Dubai-based PV developer Enerwhere has come up with a new business model for solar projects at construction sites. Its approach, which is based on short-duration PPAs, involves moving mobile PV installations from one building site to another.

The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority’s new research facility at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park will primarily focus on solar power, energy efficiency, and the integration of smart grids.

Dubai-based Enerwhere has built an 80 kW floating array at a resort island in Abu Dhabi. The installation features bespoke modules from GCL and Sungrow inverters. The developer told pv magazine the business case was based on the fact the cost of diesel generator operation in such locations can run to $0.25/kWh.

Solar deployment continued to pick up in the Middle East and North Africa in 2019, the Middle East Solar Industry Association has said in its annual report.

Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy group Masdar is sailing into the Southeast Asian solar market with Indonesia’s first floating solar project. The petro-state owned developer says the facility will be the largest in the region.