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….
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.
Ziad Tassabehji is one of the most influential men in the new green Middle East. Until now he’s kept pretty quiet about his involvement in Masdar. He came from the dot-com market with a boom and a bust, but in…
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…
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.
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