EGA welcomes ENEC’s MD & CEO to Al Taweelah site; discusses UAE’s clean energy future

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Emirates Global Aluminum, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside of oil and gas, welcomes His Excellency Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi, Managing Director and CEO of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), to visit the company’s Al Taweelah plant in Abu Dhabi.

Chief Executive Officer Abdulnasser Bin Kalban and the executive team welcome His Excellency and his delegation to EGA. Discussions focused on how the two companies will contribute to the UAE’s clean energy future.

EGA has developed a strategic plan with TAQA, Dubal Holding and EWEC to divest its natural gas power plants and instead source its electricity needs, including increasingly clean sources, from EWEC’s grid. This would make EGA the largest single customer on the grid.

ENEC’s Barakah power plant is already the largest source of clean, zero-carbon electricity in the UAE and the wider Arab world, with two of its four 1,400 MW units already in commercial operation, the third to begin commercial operation soon and the fourth Preparations are being ramped up to be operational later this year. Nuclear power is an important source of baseload electricity, meaning it can generate electricity 24/7, which is crucial to supporting the UAE’s growing intermittent renewable energy sources, which generate electricity during the day. Nuclear power generation is particularly important for decarbonizing heavy industry, which requires large amounts of continuous electricity to power industrial processes such as aluminum smelting.

ENEC supplies electricity to EWEC through a long-term agreement, and EWEC sells it for dispatch.

His Excellency Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, said: “The Barakah Nuclear Power Station provides a significant amount of the EWEC’s clean electricity and will continue to provide the majority of emission-free energy for decades to come. A carbon-free source of electricity for load, 24/7 electricity, nuclear energy plays a central role in ensuring the decarbonisation of the UAE’s electricity sector. Major industrial players like EGA seeking to decarbonise their operations already produce reliable and clean electricity from the Barakah plant benefited greatly from it.”

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer, Emirates Global Aluminum, said: “The UAE’s ambitious energy transition presents the largest single opportunity to decarbonise the EGA. Alongside solar, nuclear will be a significant part of EGA’s energy mix in the coming decades, enabling us to Providing the low-carbon aluminum the world needs to make modern life possible.”

Through an agreement with DEWA, ​​EGA will become the first company in the world to produce aluminum using solar energy in 2021. EGA produced nearly 39,000 tonnes of CelestiAL last year. EGA’s metal customers include the BMW Group, Hammerer Aluminum Industries (a Tier 1 supplier to Mercedes-Benz) and Kobe Steel (one of Japan’s largest rolling mills, which produces auto body panels for Nissan).