DUBAI: A mega solar plant is to be erected in Dubai and is expected to produce some 1000 megawatts of power by 2030, officials in Dubai said. The park, Mohamed bin Rashid al-Maktoum Solar Park, named for its funder and shiekh, is expected to create photovoltaic power and also concentrated solar power. The park, Maktoum's office told Bikyamasr.com on Wednesdsay, will begin producing some 10 megawatts of energy as early as next year. The entire project will cost some 2.5 billion euros in investment, and has been started as part of Dubai's push for alternative energy in an effort to free itself from its oil consumption. The current 7.361MW of energy produced by the DIWA, the water and power authority, depend on gas and hydrocarbons. “Currently Dubai produces 4.5 MW of energy through solar plants,” said the CEO of Dubai's Supreme Council of Energy Najib Zaafrani, “but the emirate aims to meet one per cent of its energy requirements through solar technologies by 2020, and to arrive at 5 percent by the end of the following decade.” The project's first phase, which will cover a 48 square kilometre area along the Dubai-Al Ain highway, will be “entirely” funded by the emirate itself, but the private sector will also take part through engineering consultancy services and in the subsequent development of the park. In the same period “photovoltaic energy will be given precedence over CSP,” said the vice chairman of the Supreme Council for Energy Said Al Tayer, “since it has fewer interconnectivity requirements with the existing DIWA network.” The UAE is one of the countries with the highest environmental pollution in the world, due both to the luxurious lifestyle and the energy requirements of a country without water resources and with high temperatures year round, but the country has recently announced that it will be investing a billion dollars in renewable energies before 2015. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/vFiFS Tags: Clean Energy, Dubai, Solar Power Section: Environment, Going Green, Latest News, United Arab Emirates
