United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi government officials last week inaugurated the 2 GW Dhafra Solar Photovoltaic Independent Power Project, located roughly 35 kilometers from United Arab Emirates’ capital. The plant consists of four million bifacial solar panels and is claimed to be the world’s largest single-site solar power plant.

Emirates Water and Electricity Co. (EWEC ) has announced the bidders for a tender to develop the 1.5 GW Al-Ajban solar project.

The UAE is expected to generate 25% of its electricity from solar energy and have a total installed solar capacity of 44 GW by 2050. The Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA) describes the challenges the country has to address to make this target achievable.

Italian energy company Eni is partnering with local companies in Algeria and Egypt to explore the possibility of producing green and blue hydrogen in the North African countries. The United Arab Emirates is also collaborating with Japanese partners to develop the country’s hydrogen sector, while in New York, hydrogen has arrived in Long Island.

The project is the first solar-powered green hydrogen facility in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

France’s EDF and China’s Jinko Power Technology have finalized financing for the 2 GW Al Dhafra PV2 project. The array will sell electricity to Emirates Water and Electricity Co. at a price of $0.0135/kWh.

The Dubai Water and Electricity Authority will use energy from the gigawatt-scale Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park to provide a new hydropower plant with pumped storage capacity. The state-owned utility has announced a number of innovations for the project in recent months, including plans for hydrogen and large-scale storage capacity.

The conformity assessment scheme is expected to spur development of solar distributed generation. PV installations up to 5 MW have currently access to net metering.

The EPC firm will build the PV plant with the lowest cost ever registered for solar power in the world. The project is being developed by JinkoSolar, Marubeni and ADWEA.