ACWA rumored to win the contract to build a 160 MW CSP project in in the south of Morocco.

The post Morocco solar energy deals led by Saudi Arabia appeared first on Green Prophet.

Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the Masdar CEO, is the recipient of this year’s United Nations’ Champions of the Earth award. The award honours individuals whose actions and leadership have had a far-reaching positive impact on the environment, in advancing clean energy technologies to mitigate the threats of climate change. Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted renewable energy […]

The post Visionary Masdar CEO Named “Champion of the Earth” by UN appeared first on Green Prophet.

A Saudi solar project with gigantic storage could deliver solar at night in South Africa. Saudi Arabia might not spring to mind as a nation creating the top CSP companies globally, but South Africa just selected as a “preferred bidder” to develop solar, a consortium led by the Kingdom’s own power and water group ACWA […]

The post Saudi Arabian Solar Chosen by South Africa appeared first on Green Prophet.

Saudi Arabia could be running one third of the planet’s CSP plants by 2030. With the recent announcement of the most ambitious solar plan in the world, solar developers are now headed to the oil-rich Kingdom to help make it happen.The first of a planned 25 GW of CSP (Concentrated Solar Power: mirrors to heat […]

The post Details Emerge of Saudi’s $109 Billion Solar Plan appeared first on Green Prophet.

Saudi Arabia will save an estimated 690,000 barrels of oil a day by investing in renewables. Wonder just why Saudi Arabia finally got serious about solar with a $109 billion plan to solar-power a third of the Kingdom? I did. After all, for a long time, while its greener neighbors have been adding thousands of […]

The post Why Did the Saudis Just Go Big in Solar? Oil Prices. appeared first on Green Prophet.

Is the sun finally rising on Israeli solar? After a very slow start in solar energy production, Israel is finally beginning to join her Arab neighbors fast-forwarding into a solar future, like the Saudis’ $109 Billion Solar Plan to Power a Third of Saudi Arabia. Arava Power Company, Israel’s only solar developer to make any headway […]

The post Arava Drags Israel into Solar Century with 58.5 MW Project Licensed, Contracted, and Financed appeared first on Green Prophet.

Qatar to tap the solar potential of the Middle East to supply 10 percent of its electricity by 2018. Qatar is the latest of the oil-rich Middle East/North African (MENA) nations to make bold solar plans to trap a world-record insolation to supply energy for its rapidly growing economy – one that bolted an incredible […]

The post Qatar’s Polysilicon Manufacturing to Help Supply 10 Percent Solar Goal appeared first on Green Prophet.

Claiming the the World Bank's Clean Technology Fund is supposed to be used to alleviate poverty, a British group is objecting to the use of World Bank funds in Morocco to deploy a Desertec solar project in Morocco that will export power to Europe.

The post Poverty Group Objects to Clean Technology Fund in Morocco appeared first on Green Prophet.

This wood waste may not look like fuel for a solar power plant, but it soon could be.

The post Egypt to Test Unique CSP Solar/Biomass Hybrid Plant appeared first on Green Prophet.

Saudi Arabia has finally noticed it has twenty centuries of solar reserves and has made plans to tap them. For its own use.The Kingdom has just announced a $109 billion plan to create a solar industry that generates a third of the nation’s electricity by 2032, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Maher al- Odan, a consultant at the King […]

The post $109 Billion Solar Plan to Power a Third of Saudi Arabia appeared first on Green Prophet.

A hydrogel could make deserts flourish with crops grown on under a fifth of the water.

The post Mebiol’s Futuristic Hydrogel to Grow Food on Desert Sand appeared first on Green Prophet.

When BrightSource withdrew its IPO this month, the death knell for solar was sounded, as always. The truth is more mundane. According to the always inquisitive Katie Fehrenbacher  over at GigaOm who managed to snag a Q&A with the company, BrightSource just doesn’t necessarily need the extra money right now. Its Ivanpah solar thermal project is already fully funded […]

The post Why BrightSource Did not Need that IPO appeared first on Green Prophet.

Morocco’s zero-carbon car factory opening earlier this month, via NY Times. The CEO of Renault–Nissan alliance Carlos Ghosn and Moroccan King Mohammed VI inaugerated French automaker’s one-billion-euro plant in Tangier which is set to boost Morocco’s automobile industry.The plant will build several new ‘low cost’ vehicles with an annual capacity that could reach ups 400,000 […]

The post Morocco to Build Cars in Zero Carbon Factory appeared first on Green Prophet.

It has no uranium, but lots of solar – yet Saudi Arabia plans to double down on nuclear capacity. As we covered previously, working with China, Saudi Arabia will spend more than $100 billion to build 16 nuclear energy plants within the next few years, as part of ramping up its electric capacity. But the […]

The post Solar-Rich Saudis Running after Nukes appeared first on Green Prophet.

This week I spoke to Kevin Smith, the CEO of SolarReserve, the U.S. company constructing the largest 24 hour solar project worldwide in Nevada, who told me that they are beginning to be active in the Middle East North Africa region as well. “We do have projects in development,” he said, “in Morocco, and Algeria […]

The post Interview: SolarReserve For the MENA Region? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Abu Dhabi hosts successful test of prototype water condensation, using wind power. A  revolutionary way to condense water from the desert air, powered by – and housed within – a wind turbine has been tested in the UAE  since October of 2011, by French innovation startup Eole Water. The ground-mounted version has proven that it can […]

The post Eole Uses Wind Power to Make Water From Desert Air appeared first on Green Prophet.

Every square meter of Saudi Arabia produces an extraordinary 7 kilowatt hours of energy daily in each 12 hours of sun power. If the Saudis were to use up each days solar energy supply, or 12,425 TWh of electricity, it would be a 72 year supply. Put another way, in just one day, enough solar […]

The post Saudis Could Export Solar for the Next Twenty Centuries appeared first on Green Prophet.

Turkey’s massive wind resource has long been recognized. Now China’s wind giant Sinovel has signed an agreement to supply turbines to build 600 MW of wind projects in Turkey, in what could be the company’s largest overseas deal to date. In the deal sealed this week in Beijing when Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan visited China’s […]

The post China Plans to Tap 600 MW of Wind Power in Turkey appeared first on Green Prophet.

Able to store enough heat to generate power that can last well into the night, Masdar’s Gemasolar, built in Spain last year was state of the art in solar thermal energy storage, able to reach temperatures of over 500°C. Now a U.S. startup funded by the Obama administration energy department with a $3.3 million ARPA-E grant has […]

The post Solar to Light Our Nights Gets Hotter appeared first on Green Prophet.

Saudi Arabia has lots of open land, and lots of sand which is rich in silicon; which is needed to make polysilicon for the solar industry. This year, the Kingdom has announced its second polysilicon manufacturing partnership, this time with Germany’s Centrotherm Photovoltaics.A year ago, Saudi Arabia had announced a $1 billion solar joint venture […]

The post Saudis to Make Desert Sands into Solar Polysilicon appeared first on Green Prophet.

Dubai’s electric utilities are considering buying back power generated from solar panels on the roofs of houses and office buildings. Last year, the city carried out its first ever study to see how much solar power is being produced outside the grid and it found that local businesses and other private owners were producing around 5 […]

The post Dubai Might Buy Solar off Roofs appeared first on Green Prophet.

Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant has been under suspicion for decades, rightly or wrongly. So as not to arouse alarm, the United Arab Emirates’ civil nuclear plan has been taking the opposite approach of complete transparency. The UAE has forgone any plans to enrich or reprocess uranium itself, so as to allay any cause for suspicion or concerns about […]

The post What Iran Could Learn from Abu Dhabi’s First Nuclear Plant appeared first on Green Prophet.

Arava Power Company’s application was approved last night by Israel’s Public Utility Authority for their 40 MW, $150 million photovoltaic solar farm at Kibbutz Ketura, just north of the tourist destination city of Eilat in Israel’s Arava Valley. Able to ship out one-third of the electricity consumption during Eilat’s peak daylight hours, the solar farm will […]

The post Arava’s 40 MW Solar to Power a Third of Touristy Eliat’s Peak Power appeared first on Green Prophet.

Not content with their ambitious achievements in Abu Dhabi, now Masdar is spreading clean energy worldwide. A small 6 MW wind farm in the Seychelles has broken ground and will start start providing 11 percent of the languorous tropical resort islands’ modest electricity needs, thanks to Abu Dhabi’s Fund for Development (ADFD) and Masdar, the […]

The post Masdar Blows a Fresh Breeze to the Seychelle Islands appeared first on Green Prophet.

Masdar expands its solar ambitions to the South Pacific The tiny kingdom of Tonga in the south pacific has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi based company Masdar for a 500 KW solar project to be built on the island of Vava’ in Tonga. This will add to the 1 MW […]

The post Now Masdar Brings Solar Power to Tonga appeared first on Green Prophet.

Masdar Institute makes first foray into advanced lithium battery technology. Continuing its pioneering of renewable energy technologies that have great relevance for the Middle East – such as its recent work on sand-resistant solar – the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates has just filed a provisional patent application with the U.S. Patents and […]

The post Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute Files U.S. Patent for Advanced Battery tech appeared first on Green Prophet.

Dubai is not the first Middle Eastern country you think of when you think climate-friendly. That’s about to change. Dubai will develop a strategy to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as recommendations for ultimately monetising them through a groundbreaking carbon trading scheme, it was announced today. “Our commitment towards a green […]

The post First Middle East Carbon Market – Dubai! appeared first on Green Prophet.

10,000 years after inventing agriculture, will we 7 billion take this strange next step?

The post How Pink LEDs Grow Future Food with 90% Less Water appeared first on Green Prophet.

This year's MENASOL on the 16th and 17th of May in Abu Dhabi, offers something even more special!

The post Tour One of the Largest Solar Thermal Projects on Earth at MENASOL 2012 appeared first on Green Prophet.

South Africa, among the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases worldwide, plans to introduce its own price on carbon next year. The Treasury said this week that South Africa, which is the continent’s biggest polluter, plans to introduce a carbon tax on annual emissions for all the industrial sectors responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, including electricity, […]

The post South Africa to Green its Economy in 2013 with Carbon Tax appeared first on Green Prophet.

Why does Israel so lag Arab neighbors like Morocco and Egypt in its renewable energy production?

I do not understand how the nation that invented CSP solar thermal - the solar energy that now powers much of the worlds gigantic utility-scale solar plants - can be just now announcing some tiny 35 MW solar project as its "largest ever!" - and Spain's Solaer group that is supposedly to build it; doesn't even have a website - when Morocco is building its first 500 MW plant with international energy giant Siemens.

Can anyone tell me what's going on? I have never lived in the Middle East region, unlike the rest of the local bloggers here at GreenProphet - perhaps I'm missing something that is rather obvious to the rest of you.

In the US, only our fossil states are as backward in renewable energy development.

The post Has Israel Become a Petrostate? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Sweden’s Hexicon to supply Malta with 10% of its electricity with a platform-mounting floating wind farm Despite the fact that the EU is willing to fund renewable energy in its climate laggard states, using cap & trade revenues from the sale of emission allowances, Malta still gets only 1% of its electricity from renewable energy. […]

The post Malta to Get State-of-the-Art Floating Wind Farm from Hexicon appeared first on Green Prophet.

Over the next few weeks, President Obama has a fateful personnel decision to make, and one that will influence the world’s climate, in a way that he has been unable to do through the recalcitrant billionaire-funded opposition congress in the US. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, a Bush-appointee, will step down in June, and President […]

The post How Obama Can Slow the Rising of the Oceans with World Bank Appointee appeared first on Green Prophet.

The German renewable energy giant Siemens Energy has just secured its first wind turbine orders within Africa, with orders for two new wind farms going up in Morocco. Siemens will supply turbines with a total capacity of 100 MW, 50 MW to the Haouma Wind Farm project in Northern Morocco, and 50 MW to Foum El Oued […]

The post Siemens Sells First 100 MW of Turbines to Morocco appeared first on Green Prophet.

The funding for many of the great renewable energy projects within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and other developing regions, will continue to be directed via the World Bank, Reuters reports. The funds support projects which cut climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations under the EU’s cap & trade law, and is […]

The post World Bank to Fill in till Global Climate Deal? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Arava Power Company pioneers first ever solar contract for Israel’s Bedouin minority The first-ever license for a solar project has been awarded this week to Israel’s bedouin community by Israel’s Public Utility Authority. Yosef Abramowitz of Arava Power Company promoted and led the solar project, to make a solar energy dream come true for Bedouin living […]

The post Israel’s Bedouin Get Solar from Arava (+ Obama) appeared first on Green Prophet.

Frank Wouters of Masdar Power at Abu Dhabi’s World Future Energy Summit. With its first large scale solar farm expected to be operational by August, Masdar is now about to construct its second utility-scale solar project in the UAE, the 100 MW Nour 1. The first, Shams 1, used concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) technology, that drives a steam turbine […]

The post China’s Suntech is Among Masdar’s Solar Bids for Nour 1 appeared first on Green Prophet.

Torresol - a joint venture between Spain's SENER and Abu Dhabi's Masdar, plans to invest up to $5 billion building 6 GW of concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) projects over the next three years in the deserts of the MENA region, Spain, and the US. Although the sites are not yet named, at least one of the plants will be in Abu Dhabi.

The company ('torre' is Spanish for tower, and 'sol' for sun) says it is optimistic in getting the funding for its ambitious solar project pipeline. “Despite the ongoing economic troubles facing much of the world", says Torresol President Enrique Sendagorta, "we believe we can achieve our goals as foreign banks are becoming more interested in financing solar power projects because it is a winning investment”.

The first of the Desertec solar projects all use CSP, in Morocco, and in Algeria, and just today - in Tunisia.

The post Abu Dhabi’s Torresol $5 Billion Solar Plans Include US appeared first on Green Prophet.

Wow, the Desertec vision is barreling into realization! A clean energy future where the world's deserts supply huge amounts of solar energy to the whole of humankind is truly becoming reality. Now the fourth Desertec project, by far the largest-ever solar plant in the world - for 2,000 MW of solar power - is to be built in Tunisia.

(Previous stories: Desertec Begins: 500 MW Moroccan Solar in 2012, then MedGrid joined up, providing the transmission needed, with the plan to export up to 5GW of renewable power by cable under the Mediterranean between North Africa and Europe as early as 2020, and then most recently, the 3rd Desertec Deal Signed – Algerian Solar.)

How huge will this solar project be? 2, 000 MW is six times the size of the largest solar CSP project ever built

The post Tunisia Announces 4th Desertec Deal and 2 GW of Solar! appeared first on Green Prophet.

Abu Dhabi’s 75% government-owned National Energy Company TAQA has just created its first-ever division to specialize in investing in renewable energy. The new unit, Energy Solutions, will invest in wind, solar, thermal and hydro power, according to a report at The National.  TAQA first evidenced an interest in clean energy in 2008, and it has committed to a $1.1 billion […]

The post Abu Dhabi’s $32 billion TAQA Adds Clean Energy Division appeared first on Green Prophet.

Egypt is now close to awarding a contract to build a 1,000 megawatt wind farm, to be up and running in 2016, that it first announced last year.

A wind farm this size has few equals worldwide. Egypt has some of the best wind power potential in the world, and its government is beginning to tap into this source of free fuel in earnest, since passing its plan to get 20% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, in order to stave off climate change.

The post Egypt Now Contracting a Whopping 1,000 MW Wind Farm! appeared first on Green Prophet.

It is true that 2012 may be the last year for President Obama’s bold support for clean energy – because in the wake of the Citizens United decision by the bought-and-paid-for plutocratic new Supreme Court, it is the Koch brothers who get to decide  – but oh boy, did he ever get his licks in! Last […]

The post US Leads World in Clean Energy Investment Under Obama appeared first on Green Prophet.

One high-tech polymer start-up has developed a coating to solve the problem.

The huge and visionary Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii)plan to ship vast amounts of solar to Europe has one glaring potential weakness. Dust. Deserts have all the sun that is needed to power vast cities, and recently, the 3rd Desertec deal was signed, but they also have dust. Lots of it. And little water to clean it.

Just one month's dust accumulation in desert conditions can reduce a panels output by 35%, and some even warn that water-intensive CSP is impossible for desert solar.

So developing dust-resistant solar will be the next Big Thing.

The post Chamelic Invents Answer for Desert Solar & Dust! appeared first on Green Prophet.

In the wake of a 6-day trip by China’s Premier Win Jiabao to Saudi Arabia, China and Saudi Arabia have forged an alliance on developing nuclear power. Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement with China for assistance in the development of nuclear power, using the last of its oil wealth to invest in the most […]

The post China to Help Saudis With Novel Nuke Power appeared first on Green Prophet.

Fossil-fueled til 2004, Oman is now making bold moves into solar The Sultanate of Oman, despite its small population of under 3 million, is forming an unusual partnership arrangement with Terra Nex for financing and project development of solar infrastructure capabilities locally. Terra Nex, a Switzerland-based wealth management company that develops investment opportunities, acts as a […]

The post Terra Nex to Help Oman Build its own Solar Supply Chain appeared first on Green Prophet.

Algiers will be the place to be for utility-scale solar developers next May. The German trade fair specialists Messe and their Algerian daughter company in Algiers will hold a solar trade fair at the Palais des Expositions d'Alger from 7 to 10 May, 2012.

As one of three North African desert nations now at the forefront of responsible climate legislation, through its ambitious solar plans and its participation in the visionary Desertec project, Algeria is ideally situated to host the event.

The post Desertec Nation Algeria to Host Huge Solar Trade Fair from Germany appeared first on Green Prophet.

Dubai is expected to run out of oil by 2020. It will invest billions in solar instead. Dubai produces only around 100,000 barrels per day of oil from four existing fields, and is dependent on fossil fuels for electricity production and for water, which must be desalinated. So news that Dubai is planning a gigantic […]

The post Dubai to Invest $3 Billion in 1,000 MW Solar Farm! …But Slowly appeared first on Green Prophet.

Morocco already has the world's most ambitious solar target. Now it is starting on wind.

Morocco's ascendance in renewable development is continuing apace. Morocco's state-run power utility has just invited companies to bid on five wind farm projects with a total power generation capacity of 850 megawatts, as part of its plan to build 2,000 MW of wind power by 2020.

The post Now Morocco is Looking for Bids for 850 MW of Wind appeared first on Green Prophet.

Scotland’s first Minister Alex Salmond will travel to Abu Dhabi this week  to address an audience of world leaders at the  World Future Energy Summit as a guest of Masdar. (Related: Global Clean Energy Brokers Meet at Abu Dhabi Emergy Summit) But additionally, in a first-ever contract with a country, the clean tech giant Masdar is about […]

The post Scotland Lands First Renewable Deal Between Masdar and a Nation appeared first on Green Prophet.

Could the ocean make pumped hydro power? In the Middle East, it could. A brilliant proposal has been made to build a massive 2,400 MW sea water hydro project using the Mediterranean Sea, and the Dead Sea, which is below sea level. The Dead Sea Power Project would use the ocean to make hydro power, […]

The post First Sea Water Pumped Hydro Proposed – Staggering 2,400 MW Potential appeared first on Green Prophet.