The share of clean energy in Dubai's energy mix will increase to 13.3 percent after adding solar power from the fourth phase of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the CEO and MD of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) said.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said the emirate's clean energy capacity would increase to 13.3 percent of its energy mix after adding 517 megawatts (MW) from solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) from Phase 4 of the solar park.

He made the announcement on Wednesday while speaking at a panel discussion on 'Megaprojects in the UAE' at the 7th Dubai International Project Management Forum (DIPMF).

While he didn't share more details, Al Tayer said clean energy currently accounts for 11.38 percent of Dubai's energy mix.

On 20 January, Spanish infrastructure company Abengoa had announced that it had completed a 600 MW parabolic basin complex for the fourth phase of the solar park. Phase 4 also includes 100MW from a solar power tower with 13.5 hours of thermal storage capacity and 250MW from solar PV panels.

In addition to the clean and renewable energy projects, Al Tayer pointed out that DEWA had improved the generation efficiency of its conventional power plants by 33.41 percent and increased their capacity by more than 893 MW compared to 2006 and 2003 baselines respectively by using innovative technologies.

The DEWA chief said the total capacity of solar PV power projects operating at the Solar Park had reached 1,530 MW while projects under construction, including PV and CSP, represent a combined capacity of 1,333MW.

The utility is also running energy storage pilot projects at the Solar Park. The first project, and also the first utility-scale energy storage pilot in the Gulf, was implemented in collaboration with AMPLEX–NGK to install and test a sodium sulphur (NaS) energy solution with a power capacity of 1.2MW and an energy capacity of 7.5MWh. The second project, using Tesla's lithium-ion battery solution, has a capacity of 1.21MW and an energy capacity of 8.61MWh.

(Writing by N Madhura; Editing by Anoop Menon)
(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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