The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has outlined a range of initiatives aimed at helping Dubai achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, including the world’s largest solar park.
As a first step, it has stopped launching projects that rely on fossil fuels and intends to base all future desalination capacity on renewable energy, its top official said.
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said: “In line with the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 and the Dubai Net Zero Carbon Emissions Strategy 2050, we have a clear objective to provide 100% of our energy production capacity by 2050 from Clean Energy” in a video interview with World Finance.
“One of the largest projects to help us achieve 100% clean energy by 2050 is the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. It is the largest single-site solar park in the world. Its current production capacity is 2,027 megawatts, or about 14 percent of the total global energy. Dewa’s total electricity production capacity,” he noted.
“By 2030, it will have a production capacity of 5,000 megawatts, using photovoltaic solar panels and concentrated solar power technology,” he said.
He noted that Dewa is also working on building a 250MW pumped storage hydroelectric power plant, which will be the first of its kind in the GCC region, using water stored in the Hatta Dam.
Other initiatives include retrofitting buildings across the city for energy efficiency – more than 7,000 have been retrofitted – and installing electric vehicle charging stations across Dubai. More than 350 electric vehicle stations have been installed so far, with plans to reach 1,000 by 2025, he added.
Al Tayer noted that all these efforts have paid off, with Dubai reducing its CO2 emissions by 21 percent by the end of 2021, exceeding its target of 16 percent.
“Encouraged by this, the government has set a new target for 2030 to reduce emissions by 30 percent,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service