Shlomi Mir is one of Israel’s most visionary designers whose recent tumbleweed anti-desertification project earned him a Lexus Design Award alongside giants like Toyo Ito. But its his beautiful rechargeable LED bowl lamp that we are drooling over today – an elegant combination of art, design, tradition, technology and even spirituality.
Saudi Aramco may be taking over the Kingdom’s renewable energy industry in order to hasten the uptake of solar, wind and other alternative sources of energy. The move comes after the government-backed group forecasted a significant slump in export revenue as local oil consumption soars.
Saudi Arabia has announced that the construction industry has five years to “green” up their business. Amid a massive construction boom, the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) has decreed that all companies must reduce their air, water and noise pollution in keeping with regulations approved in 2008.
Over 400 senior executives will descend on Dubai this week to learn how best to develop and construct photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) plants in the region’s top markets including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Morocco.
Turkey is floating plans to build a new “eco-city” in the southeastern corner of the country, near the border of Syria, and green building experts from Gaziantep want to use energy from burning pistachio shells to keep it running.
Masdar CEO Sultan Al Jaber is moving on to “greener” pastures, according to a statement released by Abu Dhabi investment giant Mubadala. The firm has appointed Al Jaber as its chairman; Masdar’s new CEO has been identified as Ahmad Belhoul.
Many conferences end in handshakes and no action, but Powering the Middle East aims to close deals. This two day summit in Amman hosted by HRH Prince Assem Bin Nayef from Jordan will connect energy and water players in the private sector with government officials capable of turning words into real projects.
Glow-in-the-dark roads recently debuted on a 500 meter stretch of Netherlands highway! Brought to you by the guy behind glow-in-the-dark trees. He’s been burning the candle at both ends – not so much to increase light levels, more to roll out new applications of his natural luminescence designs.
Solar parks in the desert face two major challenges: a lot of dust on the photovoltaic panels and not enough water to clean them. Dust can cause up to a 40% decrease in efficiency of the panels. So there is huge interest to avert this problem. Normally teams of humans come in with squeegees to […]
Jordan’s National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) has finally signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with US-based First Solar Inc. and the Shams Ma’an Consortium for a 52.5 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project – the first such project in the kingdom and one of the largest in the region.
Masdar has sued the Spanish government. The multi-pronged company funded in part by the government of Abu Dhabi helped build the world’s first 24/7 solar power plant in Spain, a feat made possible in part with subsidies. But Spain has now cut incentives for renewable energy, which eats into Masdar’s investment.
It has been a long, controversial and expensive road for BrightSource Energy, but their 392 megawatt concentrating solar plant is now finally delivering renewable energy to the California grid and it is the largest plant of its kind in the world.
Saudi Arabia isn’t well known for its architectural subtlety, but Gerber Architekten’s renovation of the King Fahad National Library in Riyadh suggests that the Kingdom may be open to a new approach.
The international renewable energy group IRENA announced the first six recipients of concessional loans for off grid renewable energy projects that are “ready for the shovel,” as Director General Adnan Z. Amin put it in a press conference yesterday. They will receive a combined $41 million from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD).
There’s something so satisfying about watching the seed of an idea turn into something real – like GE’s Ecomagination Center unveiled at Masdar City outside of Abu Dhabi today.