Solar park is in line with Dubai’s strategy to provide 100 percent of the emirate’s power from clean energy sources by 2050

In line with Dubai’s sustainability-driven strategies to provide 100 percent of the emirate’s power from clean energy sources by 2050, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park continues its progress with Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) announcing on Monday that the production capacity of the first project of the park’s fifth phase has increased from 300 megawatts to 330mw.

With that, the 900mw fifth phase, of investment-size AED2.058 billion, is 60 percent complete placing the solar park’s current capacity at 1,527mw with its planned capacity at 5,000mw by 2030. 

The fifth phase, which will become operational in stages until 2023, will provide clean energy for more than 270,000 residences in Dubai and will reduce 1.18 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually, explained Waleed Bin Salman, executive vice president of business development and excellence at DEWA.

“At DEWA, we work in line with the vision and directives of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to promote sustainability and innovation and transform into a sustainable green economy, by increasing the share of clean and renewable energy,” said Al Tayer.

“The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the largest single-site solar park in the world, is our biggest project to achieve this vision. The clean energy share is currently 11.38 percent of Dubai’s energy mix, and it will reach 13.3 percent in Q1 of 2022. DEWA is implementing more projects with a total capacity of 1,333mw using solar photovoltaic and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in addition to future phases to reach 5,000mw by 2030,” he continued.

“Since its launch, the solar park’s projects have received considerable interest from global developers, which reflects the confidence of investors from around the world in DEWA’s major projects in collaboration with the private sector using the Independent Power Producer (IPP) model. Through this model, DEWA has attracted around AED40bn of investments and received the lowest global solar energy prices five consecutive times, making Dubai a global benchmark for solar energy prices,” Al Tayer added.

Highlighting the UAE’s ambitions when it comes to sustainability and environmentally-friendly practices, this comes in as the ADSW Summit, hosted by Masdar and part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, kicks off virtually later today.

The summit will convene more than 80 global leaders, including heads of state, policy makers, and international business leaders, as the UAE aims to take the agenda of global sustainability forward and accelerate pathways to net zero, organisers said on Sunday.

The ADSW Summit’s opening session will include a head of state address from President Halimah Yacob of Singapore, who will discuss collective climate action and the impact climate change is already having across the globe.

ADSW 2022 is the first major sustainability event after the COP26 climate change conference, and acts as a global catalyst for COP27, to be held in Egypt in 2022, and COP28, which will be hosted by the UAE in 2023.

The wider agenda for the ADSW Summit includes sessions on the global energy transition, the future of transportation, the health energy nexus, carbon capture and storage, the blue economy, and the increasing importance of environmental, social, and governance criteria in making decisions.

As a global platform supporting economic development, knowledge sharing and innovation, ADSW is aligned with the UAE’s ‘Principles of the 50,’ which chart a course for the nation’s prosperity over the next five decades.

SOURCE: arabianbusiness.com