UAE - Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the UAE and the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer, has signed an agreement to supply CelestiAL solar aluminium to Mercedes-Benz parts maker Hammerer Aluminum Industries (HAI).

The agreement will see EGA’s CelestiAL metal return to the UAE, as well as being distributed all over the world. EGA supplies thousands of tonnes of aluminium to HAI each year. A proportion of this supply will now switch to CelestiAL.

Rob van Gils, Chief Executive Officer of Hammerer Aluminium Industries, said: “This partnership with EGA enables us to contribute to a better future and shows that aluminium has a key role to play in achieving the European Union’s Green Deal ambitions to decarbonise manufacturing. I am personally excited that many parts of the premium SUVs which are so popular in the UAE will be produced by HAI using EGA’s UAE-made CelestiAL solar aluminium. I look forward to driving these vehicles on the UAE’s sand dunes.”

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of EGA, said: “The launch of EGA’s CelestiAL solar aluminium was a landmark in our industry’s drive to net zero. We expect to soon be able to increase production of CelestiAL, and meet more of the significant global demand for this innovative, low-carbon metal. We are proud that HAI, and their customers like Mercedes-Benz AG, will use aluminium made with the power of the UAE sun.”

In 2021, EGA became the first company in the world to produce aluminium commercially using solar power through a partnership with Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, which operates the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in the desert outside Dubai.

EGA expects to vastly increase its production of CelestiAL through an initiative with Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, Dubal Holding and Emirates Water and Electricity Company to divest its electricity generation assets and source power from the grid, including an increasing proportion of clean energy.

The new steady power demand from EGA would increase the predictability of the overall power system, and advance EWEC’s development of new solar energy projects. The scale of the expansion is expected to be greater than the current total installed solar generation capacity in the UAE and EGA would utilise this additional solar power once it is developed, said a statement.

Producing aluminium is energy intensive, and generating electricity accounts for some 60 per cent of the global aluminium industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. The use of solar power significantly reduces the emissions associated with aluminium smelting.

Hammerer employs around 1,900 people. Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in Ranshofen, Upper Austria, and has eight other locations in Germany, Romania and Poland. 

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