Masdar, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala investment company, will join two European companies, Total and Abengoa Solar, in spending $600 million on a new solar plant in the desert 75 miles from the city.
With a capacity when it comes onstream in two years’ time of 100 megawatts, “Shams 1″ will make only a small dent in Abu Dhabi’s power needs, estimated at 20 gigawatts by 2020.
The brand new solar plant will sell power to the national grid, with the government subsidising the state electricity company the excess cost over the average price from the city’s oil-fired power plants.
June 11th, 2010 at 8:58 am
It looks like the solar movement is gaining momentum. US can learn something from this since it`s important for us to move away from the dependency on foreign oil and to use energy resources that are readily available.
June 28th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
The solar movement is gaining lots of momentum. The implementation of solar panels on residential homes is also becoming more popular, which is great. Government incentives are a great idea to help boost the economy and get people on the green-energy bandwagon.