Abu Dhabi’s Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) has announced on Saturday that “Noor Abu Dhabi” — the world’s largest single-site solar project — with a capacity of 1,177MW, has started commercial operation.
As part of the country’s inventiveness towards better energy security, the Noor Abu Dhabi solar power plant will produce approximately 1.2 gigawatts of electricity that can cover the demand of 90,000 people.
The project will enable Abu Dhabi to increase its production of renewable energy and reduce the use of natural gas in electricity generation, helping to make energy more sustainable and efficient and reducing the Emirate’s carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million metric tonnes per year, which is equivalent to taking 200,000 cars off the roads.
The Dh3.2-billion solar plant, located at Sweihan in Abu Dhabi, is a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi Government and a consortium of Japan’s Marubeni Corp and China’s Jinko Solar Holding. “The completion of the project marks a significant milestone in the UAE’s Energy Strategy 2050, launched in 2017, to increase the contribution of clean energy in the total energy mix to 50% by 2050 while reducing the carbon footprint of power generation by 70%,” said Mohammad Hassan Al Suwaidi, Chairman of EWEC.
EWEC also announced that the project broke the record for the world’s most competitive tariff at 8.888 fils/kWh, the fils being a subdivision of the dirham currency (like cent is to dollar) which at present equates to about 0.024 usd/kWh or 2.4 cents/kWh.
