Qatar Solar Energy has unveiled a massive factory that will produce high quality solar panels that make the most of the desert sun, a boon not just for the emirate, but potentially for the entire Middle East.

QSE claims that they are now the largest solar power producer in the region with 300 MW capacity, eclipsing the United Arab Emirates, which recently ranked third in the world for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) after Spain and the United States.

At the unveiling, which was attended by a host of dignitaries, QSE told Al Jazeera that they have plans to expand their capacity to 2.5GW, though board member Reyad Fezzani was not willing to predict when they might reach that goal.

“It’s an exciting future for solar energy and we haven’t even scratched the surface,” Fezzani told journalists during a tour of the facility outside of Doha.

Related: Qatar has the world’s largest carbon footprint

Qatar is the sixth largest producer of natural gas, and many of its citizens are among the world’s wealthiest, but the emirate has long recognized the need to bring more renewable energy on board to cope with such difficulties as water scarcity and finite fossil fuels.

“In line with Qatar’s 2030 Vision, we are making tangible and determined steps towards deploying new and renewable energy and establishing Qatar as a technology development and research hub in these new energy industries,” says QSE on their website.

In order to help facilitate research and development, the group established the Al Jazari Center of Excellence is said to host a “highly skilled and equipped R&D Lab Center.”

Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, attended Sunday’s inauguration, Al Jazeera reports.

“What impresses me is that it’s driven by a visionary view of what we should be doing for the future,” he told the paper, adding the facility was “beyond state-of-the-art.”

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After China went on a massive photovoltaic-making binge, their generic panels flooded the global market, prices plunged, and many businesses in the United States and Europe could not compete.They consequently lost a lot of money, got mad, and walloped solar manufacturers with tariffs.

That malarkey seems to have settled itself, solar manufacturers are bouncing back, and the Middle East, Africa and South America are expected to grow the fastest, Colorado-based industry research group, IHS inc. predicted in a recent report.

Of course, these nations have further to climb so it’s no great revelation that their growth will outpace more established solar markets, but at least there appears to be a strong consensus in the Middle East, Africa and South America that anyone who bets on coal or gas now will land up on the wrong side of natural history.

Climate change is imminent. So are: drought, starvation, and greater political instability, and a host of other unforeseen consequences of pouring more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Saudi Arabia alone is betting $109 billion on solar energy and plan to derive a third of their electricity from clean sources by 2032, reports Quartz. The Kingdom isn’t messing around. They still want to sell off their oil and rake in riches, but at home they’ll live off the sun.

Smart move.

Perhaps the greater danger is this: if we don’t hurry up and get a lot of solar and wind on board now, we are going to grow ever more desperate. When this happens, and probably it already has, we won’t care where it comes from. Let’s just pretend we’re not there yet.

Now for an antidote to that bleak note, here’s the sunny side from Quartz: “Overall, spending on the equipment for making solar panels and on other capital expenditures is projected to increase 30% to $3 billion in 2014.”

Qatar needs a lot of solar technology to prepare for the 2022 World Cup, Saudi obviously does, and the United Arab Emirates has a healthy appetite as well.

Once governments sort out kinks in the incentives program (needed to attract international investors), prepare for the solar mayhem.

:: Quartz

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The joint goal to build solar energy plants with a combined generation of 1,000 MW capacity should result in power for up to 200,000 homes, writes Bloomberg.

This project is not related to either the UAE’s other solar energy developments, including the impressive Shams 1 CSP plant, or Saudi’s ambitious intention to spend up to $100 billion to lift itself out of the ranks as one of the less solarized Middle Eastern nations.

Instead, the Kingdom and Emirate are seeking grants and loans to help finance the project, which will bring solar power as far afield as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. And it can’t happen a second too soon.

While Gulf countries have cash at hand to bring more renewable energy on board to combat global warming, climate change, pollution and all other environmental, economic and social ills associated with fossil fuels, other countries in the region are not as solvent.

This includes Jordan, which nonetheless strives to reduce its long-term independence on foreign sources of energy to ensure its citizens have access to electricity.

Meanwhile, the government recently passed legislation mandating that all new hot water systems must be solar-powered to reduce existing loads with small interventions.

Those regulations came into effect in April this year. But large scale installations are harder to enforce, and definitely harder to fund.

Like big brothers to smaller Jordan, which has kept its nose pretty clean throughout regional upheavals despite the enormous pressure they face with an ongoing influx of Syrian refugees, Saudi and the UAE will rely on their former energy expertise to ply a pioneering path lined with geothermal, solar and wind energy plants.

“The Saudi market already has an attractive framework for building and funding traditional power plants, and liquidity is ample in local banks,” Steve Mercieca, the Dubai-based chief executive officer of the Clean Energy Business Council told Bloomberg.

“Appetite is going to be substantial” for the funding of such projects, he added.

Already investment in the region’s renewable energy developments nearly doubled last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

“Regional investment topped US$2.9 billion in 2012, up 40% from 2011 and 650% from 2004,” according to a recent IRENA press release.

“With over 100 projects under development, the region could see a 450% increase in non-hydro renewable energy generating capacity in the next few years.”

:: Bloomberg

Image of Arab man shaking hands, Shutterstock

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