Viewing posts tagged "Abu Dhabi"

$1B Polysilicon Plant in Saudi Arabia

The First Energy Bank of Bahrain plans to build a polysilicon plant in Saudia Arabia to serve an increasing demand for solar energy generation in the Middle East.

The bank said it's teaming up with Project Management and Development Co. in Saudi Arabia to build the factory, which would cost about $1 billion, reported the Reuters. The factory would have an annual capacity of 7,500 tons; production is set to begin in 2013.

The Islamic bank plans to finance the project with 40 percent equity and 60 percent debt. Part of that debt would come from the Saudi government.

The developers already have signed an off-take agreement with Vinmar International in the United States, a petrochemical seller in Houston.

Countries in the Middle East are eager to invest in solar and other renewable energy manufacturing and generation. They see such investments as necessary to lessen their dependence on oil consumption and production.

Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates, has invested in solar panel manufacturing and installations. Kuwait plans to solicit bids next year for a solar power plant. Saudia Arabia wants to build a 2-megawatt solar farm at its King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

Dust, David Gelbaum, Energy Storage: The Floor Chatter at Intersolar

SAN FRANCISCO -- Trade shows are my life. I spend at least 375 hours a year trolling around the hallways of cavernous convention centers gathering squishy balls and 9 x 12 glossy folders.

While some people despise them, I think they play an integral role in the technology industry. They are the modern day equivalent of the trade fairs conducted by the Hanseatic league. Besides, it gives me a chance to socialize. Here are some of the tidbits from the floor at Intersolar that took place in San Francisco this year:

• More than one person talked about dust and debris and the effect it could have on solar performance, particularly in desert nations like Abu Dhabi. It will also be a problem that Europe has to tackle if it wants to get large amounts of power from solar thermal plants in North Africa. Skyline Solar, which makes silicon modules with reflective concentrators, argued that the design of its module may lead to less debris. Dew that forms on the concentrator will roll off, carrying some solids with it.

• David Gelbaum, the secretive investor behind the Quercus Trust, was allegedly in town. I didn't see him. Then again, he might have been that guy in the Gavin Newsom mask.

• There are two companies using the name Solar Magic. National Semiconductor, of course, sells a product called SolarMagic to boost the performance of solar modules. Meanwhile, a Chinese company called Heze Solar Magic brands its solar thermal water heaters as solar magic. (National's SolarMagic helps get around the debris issue by allowing solar panels to act more independently.)

• Abe Yokell of Rockport Capital Partners stopped by. We chatted about storage. One of the issues that will likely begin to crop up in the hot, but almost nonexistent, storage market is the fact that the price between expensive, peak power and cheap nighttime power isn't that great. Or at least maybe not large enough to justify buying millions of dollars worth of equipment to balance electrical loads. Still, Rockport is looking into storage investments.

Abu Dhabi’s Smart Grid

Abu Dhabi has already put itself on the map with its Masdar City project – an entire zero-emissions city to be powered by renewable energy, built with the Middle Eastern government's oil wealth.

Now the emirate that houses the capital of the United Arab Emirates is busy building out a smart grid infrastructure to match, according to an executive of the Danish company hired to integrate it.

But while Masdar is still in the development phases, "We're in the real world," said Morten Hald, chief business development officer for Amplex.

Amplex is in the business of networking utility substations, smart meters and streetlights, and has projects underway in Denmark, South Africa, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and in the United States in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Washington, D.C., Hald said.

Most of those projects are focused on streetlight networking, a field in which Amplex competes with companies including Echelon (see Will Smart Grid See a Push For Powerline Networking?).

But the Abu Dhabi project, headed by its own Amplex division, will include a host of projects, starting with about 275,000 streetlights along Abu Dhabi's major roadways and eventually expanding to 1.2 million smart meters and substation monitoring and control systems, he said.

The project hasn't yet tackled the job of integrating the renewable power plants being built by Masdar, the government-backed initiative that invests in a number of green tech companies and projects, including the 1-gigawatt London Array wind power project (see Biggest Offshore Wind Farm Will Feed Londoners in 2012).

But Hald said he expects Amplex's smart grid networks will "touch Masdar" at some point in the future. It will also expand to water and sewage system monitoring system, he said.

Amplex is integrating the communications systems of the smart meters in the project, which come from vendors including Itron, Elster, Landis+Gyr and Kamstrup, as well as managing the data that comes from them and the distribution system sensors and streetlights, he said.