The public electricity company of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, announced on Friday the award of a mega solar power plant project to the French group Engie, in collaboration with the Emirati renewable energy company Masdar.
EWEC (Emirates Water and Electricity Company) commissioned the two companies to develop a 1.5 GW power plant, with nearly three million photovoltaic panels, and signed power purchase agreements with them, the company said in a statement.
Once completed, the Khazna Solar photovoltaic project will generate electricity for 160,000 homes in the Gulf emirate and avoid more than 2.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year, he added, without giving a timetable.
Objective: cover 60% of energy needs in clean energy
The project is part of EWEC’s strategy aimed at increasing Abu Dhabi’s solar capacity to 18 GW by 2035, with the aim of covering 60% of the emirate’s energy needs with clean energy, according to the same source.
The United Arab Emirates is one of the world’s leading oil exporters, but invests massively in renewable energy, both at home and abroad, through the company Masdar.
The deputy general director of Engie, Paulo Almirante, cited in the statement, stressed that the Khazna plant will be “the largest photovoltaic installation” of the French group worldwide.
According to the statement, the financial closing of the project is planned “for the end of the fourth quarter of 2025.”
Source: BFM TV
