DUBAI // The emirate's first large-scale solar power plant is 70 per cent complete and on schedule for completion in October.
The 13-megawatt plant comprises the first phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park, which aims to generate electricity (1,000 MW) to power 200,000 homes by 2030.
Saeed Al Tayer, vice chairman of the Supreme Council of Energy, said yesterday that cabling for the project had been laid and the infrastructure to provide grid connection was completed. The solar panels are to be installed over the next two months, with commissioning to start in September, a month ahead of the project's launch date.
A much larger plant is also to be built, according to Mr Al Tayer, who is also chief executive and managing director of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority.
He said a 100MW facility would soon be put out to tender and that the schedule for this would be released "in due course". Mr Al Tayer had no more details, only that the facility would use photovoltaic technology, which converts sunlight into electricity.
Waleed Salman, the chairman of the Dubai Carbon Centre of Excellence, said the project would help Dubai meet its goals of using renewables for 5 per cent of its energy needs by 2030.
"It was new technology for us," said Mr Salman. "We now have the right knowledge of how to treat a project of this kind."