Morocco solar energy deals led by Saudi Arabia
ACWA rumored to win the contract to build a 160 MW CSP project in in the south of Morocco.
Susan Kraemer
Visionary Masdar CEO Named “Champion of the Earth” by UN
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 […]
Saudi Arabian Solar Chosen by South Africa
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 […]
Details Emerge of Saudi’s $109 Billion Solar Plan
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 […]
Why Did the Saudis Just Go Big in Solar? Oil Prices.
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 […]
Arava Drags Israel into Solar Century with 58.5 MW Project Licensed, Contracted, and Financed
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 […]
Qatar’s Polysilicon Manufacturing to Help Supply 10 Percent Solar Goal
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 […]
Poverty Group Objects to Clean Technology Fund in Morocco
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.
Egypt to Test Unique CSP Solar/Biomass Hybrid Plant
This wood waste may not look like fuel for a solar power plant, but it soon could be.
$109 Billion Solar Plan to Power a Third of Saudi Arabia
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 […]
Mebiol’s Futuristic Hydrogel to Grow Food on Desert Sand
A hydrogel could make deserts flourish with crops grown on under a fifth of the water.
Why BrightSource Did not Need that IPO
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 […]
Morocco to Build Cars in Zero Carbon Factory
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 […]
Solar-Rich Saudis Running after Nukes
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 […]
Interview: SolarReserve For the MENA Region?
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 […]
Eole Uses Wind Power to Make Water From Desert Air
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 […]
Saudis Could Export Solar for the Next Twenty Centuries
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 […]
China Plans to Tap 600 MW of Wind Power in Turkey
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 […]
Solar to Light Our Nights Gets Hotter
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 […]
Saudis to Make Desert Sands into Solar Polysilicon
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 […]
Dubai Might Buy Solar off Roofs
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 […]
What Iran Could Learn from Abu Dhabi’s First Nuclear Plant
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 […]
Arava’s 40 MW Solar to Power a Third of Touristy Eliat’s Peak Power
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 […]
Masdar Blows a Fresh Breeze to the Seychelle Islands
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 […]
Now Masdar Brings Solar Power to Tonga
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 […]