The sceptics said it could not be done - that the wind in the UAE did not blow hard enough to generate electricity. Sharjah's Electricity and Water Authority (SEWA) has set out to debunk that theory with an experimental project that taps the power of the wind and is expected to produce enough clean energy to meet the demands of a small building in the authority's compound in Halwan.
The UAE's first wind-driven electricity generating system operates with a little help from an element in plentiful supply in this part of the world: sunshine. It is piloted by SEWA in tandem with Global Engineering Systems, a private company based in the emirate, and is part of a larger initiative to investigate how renewable energy can help lessen the environmental impact of the UAE's increasing demand for power.
One area of immediate concern for the Sharjah authorities is escalating electricity consumption in public buildings. Government departments in the emirate do not pay for power and water, and their energy use is an increasing cause for concern. "The power consumption of public buildings is getting higher," said Othman Surour Almas, head of maintenance and planning at SEWA. "We are not going to meet demand if we continue like this."
Mr Almas said Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, the Ruler of Sharjah, "wants a clean city and clean energy". There are also the UAE's international environmental commitments to consider. "We have signed the Kyoto Protocol. It is mandatory now to look for clean energy," said Mr Almas, who is also a member of a national committee on renewable energy. The UAE is a lot less windy than countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, where reliable winds account for a fifth of the energy being used. These countries, along with others in Europe and North America, have invested heavily in energy-producing farms, where large wind turbines generate hundreds of megawatts of electricity. The big turbines need winds of at least seven metres a second to operate efficiently. The UAE's average wind speed is no higher than 5.5 metres a second, but this is enough for small-capacity generators, also known as micro windmills. These can function efficiently at wind speeds of as little as four metres per second.
"Micro wind fills a gap left by the large turbines," said P Ravindrenath, director of Unitron Energy Systems, an Indian company that supplied the 3.3-kilowatt turbine for the Sharjah project. Last week, Mr Ravindrenath was in Sharjah for the installation of his company's micro wind turbine, and, with average wind speeds higher in this region than in India, he is enthusiastic about the potential of the GCC market.
"Today you have cheap energy compared to other countries. But the actual electricity production cost is much higher," he said, pointing out that electricity is subsidised in the UAE and other parts of the Gulf. Companies involved in producing clean energy have been pushing for subsidies and other measures to help develop the market in the UAE and regulations are being discussed to make it easier for renewable energy sources to compete with cheaper but less environmentally friendly fossil fuels. However, clean energy technology is still viewed with suspicion by some, and there are no regulations that allow the energy to be fed into the main electricity grid and sold to the UAE's power authorities. The Sharjah project's success will be judged largely by its performance over the summer.
The new system in the SEWA compound, which is complemented by a 300-watt solar panel, will power a small building as well as a street light, said Benji George, regional manager for group business development at Global Engineering Systems, the company that persuaded the power authority to test the project. "The building is very small but it is good as an experiment and as a model for people to see," said Mr Almas.
As with most projects using renewable energy, this one was coupled with efficiency measures to reduce the building's consumption. Simple measures such as installing a new LCD computer monitor and more efficient lighting reduced the energy needs of the building from 9,996 watts a day to 5,500 watts, said Mr George. The electricity is generated by a single turbine, 4.65 metres in diameter, installed on top of a nine-metre pole.
vtodorova@thenational.ae