United Arab Emirates

A Californian company which provides PV power to maternity clinics in the developing world was an award winner alongside British pay-as-you-go electricity provider BBOXX. And a school in Tajikistan which aims to go fully solar powered secured a cool $100,000 towards that ambition.

Togo, Mauritius and Guyana will all receive backing for solar projects in the latest round of funding from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development-IRENA Project Facility.

The CEO of Masdar has reportedly told Reuters of his company’s ambition and said it would partly be achieved by developing projects in new territories.

With Dubai and Abu Dhabi having already implemented big plans for solar energy development, the small northern emirate of Umm Al Quwain has now announced its first large-scale solar power project.

The seventh round of funding under the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development program takes to US$350 million the amount pumped into clean energy as part of state-run energy transition strategies in the developing world.

The Dubai Water and Electricity Authority (DEWA) has announced it will expand Phase IV of the 5 GW Mohammed bin Rashid Maktoum Solar Park by another 250 MW. The power utility has also revealed that the PPA with the project developer, local energy giant ACWA Power has been amended, and that the new PV portion of Phase IV, which originally included only a 700 MW CSP power plant planned to sell power at $0.073/kWh, will sell power at a tariff of $0.024/kWh. This price equals that of a 1.17 GW solar project currently under construction in Abu Dhabi.

Dubai’s ENOC announced it has completed the construction of a rooftop solar array on its lubricants manufacturing plant in Dubai. The array can cover the complete power demand of the factory. This is not the first time the oil company has turned its head towards solar PV to power its facilities. Already nine petrol stations are equipped with solar canopies for 100% green energy supply, with the company vowing to equip all future petrol stations with such canopies.

The Dubai Water and Electricity Authority (DEWA) has issued a tender for the construction of a hydrogen plant and associated facilities at the huge solar complex. In June, a pilot storage project based on NGK’s NAS Batteries was also launched at the facility.

The UAE-based solar company has signed a 15 year lease for a 1.8 MW rooftop project on two warehouses of Apparel Group, a global fashion and lifestyle retail conglomerate.

In a study on the potential for local manufacturing of renewable energy equipment in the Arab region, IRENA has assessed how three pilot Arab countries – Lebanon, Jordan and the UAE – where development of clean energy is currently strong, may host PV, CSP and wind energy industries. In all of them, however, there are currently few chances of seeing a rising solar and renewable energy manufacturing industry, due to a series of challenges, such as, among others, the lack of a qualified workforce, and favorable regulatory settings.