UAE opens 104 MW wind project ahead of U.N. climate summit - Reuters
UAE opens 104 MW wind project ahead of U.N. climate summit | Reuters
UAE opens 104 MW wind project ahead of U.N. climate summit
A wind farm is seen in this undated handout image released on October 5, 2023 in Sir Bani Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC – Masdar/Handout via REUTERS/File photo Acquire Licensing Rights
DUBAI, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates has launched its first wind project of commercial size, making use of technology to exploit low wind speeds, as it pushes to boost renewables before hosting the COP 28 climate summit next month.
The 103.5-megawatt project run by renewable energy firm Masdar is set to power more than 23,000 homes a year, the firm said, spanning four locations.
"This project ... will help displace around 120,000 tons of CO2 - carbon footprint - annually," said Mohammad Abdelqader El-Ramahi, Masdar's chief green hydrogen officer.
"And that would be the equivalent of removing around 26,000 cars from the roads."
Working with PowerChina and GoldWind International, Masdar said the project's turbines can exploit low wind speeds at scale, thanks to advances in materials science and aerodynamics that make wind power possible despite the heat and humidity.
Late last year, Masdar became part owned by three Abu Dhabi state-controlled entities: utility TAQA (TAQA.AD) with a 43% stake, sovereign wealth fund Mubadala holding 33% and state oil giant ADNOC with 24%.
Sultan Al Jaber, the chief executive of ADNOC who also chairs Masdar and was its founding chief executive, is the incoming president of the U.N. climate change conference COP28, a choice that has spurred criticism from climate activists.
"Today, the UAE is working on several fronts; nuclear energy, solar energy and now wind," said Dalal Matar Al Shamsi, a natural resources specialist in the geology department of United Arab Emirates University.
"So if we took all of this into consideration, we expect promising results by 2071, the UAE's centennial."
Reporting by Abir Ahmar; Editing by Yousef Saba and Clarence Fernandez
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.