Hazy conditions stemming from dust particles that traveled from North Africa to Israel shut down two Israeli airports last week. Last week two airports in Israel had to shut down because the sky was so hazy and visibility was so…
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…
The arid Middle Eastern desert climate offers little in the way of natural resources. But it does boast of brilliant and fierce sunlight. In a continuing effort to reach the goal of 10% renewable power by 2020, Israel has recently…
It’s official: Zaha Hadid is going to design the new Central Bank of Iraq’s Headquarters; Tafline argues that it should be green. Zaha Hadid is widely celebrated for her incredible, untethered design, but less so for her environmental sensibilities. So…
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….
If you are of the 41 percent that lives in drylands, your future depends on supporting plant biodiversity. An international team of researchers including Dr. Bertrand Boeken of the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the…
Five thousand Syrians have died since the uprising started but climate change could kill many more in this dry country. Approximately 5,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March last year, according to UN estimates, and…
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.
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
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…
