Like a windscreen wiper on steroids, a slim machine whisks across the sand-dusted solar panels and leaves in its wake a sparkling surface ready to absorb the sun's energy.
The cleaning robot - essentially an industrial Roomba, or domestic robot vacuum cleaner, for solar panels in the desert - was being demonstrated to crowds at last week's World Future Energy Summit as the latest tool in the US solar company SunPower's arsenal for getting ahead in a long-anticipated bid.
Industry insiders are optimistic that in the next few months Abu Dhabi's Executive Council could give Masdar the green light to build Nour 1, a 100-megawatt photovoltaic plant for which companies first bid in 2011.
The wait for the project has gone on so long that Dubai has since stolen the distinction of having the Middle East's biggest solar panel plant, and companies even began planning for a never-announced successor that they dubbed Nour 2, a natural stepping stone to Abu Dhabi's ambitious target of sourcing 7 per cent of its power from renewables by 2020.
But the delay could work to Abu Dhabi's advantage thanks to declines in the cost of solar energy: in three years' time, the cost of the average solar panel has fallen by 60 per cent.
"Solar energy is making huge progress, decreasing its costs, increasing its competitiveness, so that market potential for solar is now improving a lot in many countries in the Middle East, potentially in every country in the Middle East," said Bernard Clement, the senior vice president of new energies for Total, which owns 66 per cent of Sunpower. "Solar projects have one benefit: they are in general easier to develop than, say, oil and gas, so you don't need a lot of preparation, you just have to be ready from a technical point of view."
Abu Dhabi has a number of factors to consider, including lessons learnt through a disappointing investment in Solyndra, the US company that filed for bankruptcy in 2011, and delays in bringing online Shams 1, a 100MW solar thermal array. Solar mirrors there generate power by heating oil to make steam to drive electricity turbines rather than by directly producing power as in photovoltaic panels.
Gulf countries seem to have decided to forgo subsidies for renewables and let them compete head to head with natural gas and nuclear, said Joe Kishkill, the chief commercial officer of First Solar, which built Dubai's 13MW solar panel plant.
"I think we're close enough on cost today," he said. "You can install a solar plant just on the amount of liquid fuels you'd save."
At a logistical level, Abu Dhabi may also need to make sure its power grid is ready to take on new supply, said Mohammed Atif, the area manager for DNV GL's energy advisory.
"It's probably more a practical issue," he said.
"I would suspect what AD is waiting for is it's waiting for the right time to add that capacity to manage that demand."
ayee@thenational.ae