Abu Dhabi turns to rooftops for next solar power wave

For more than a decade, the Gulf’s clean-energy ambitions have been etched into the desert with vast solar parks that rank among the world’s largest and cheapest producers of electricity.

Left virtually untouched, however, are the region’s sun-soaked rooftops. From the UAE’s soaring corporate towers to the high-end villas in its residential neighborhoods, rooftop installations provide less than 1% of the nation’s solar capacity compared to more than 40% globally. 

That is about to change – in part because wartime attacks from Iran have made people conscious of rising energy and fuel costs and fearful of the prospect of extended blackouts. A drone attack on the weekend targeted the Barakah nuclear power plant, which supplies about 25% of the country’s power.

“The number of inquiries has increased several times over,” Vladimir Mlynchik, Co-Founder of Abu Dhabi-based solar company Volts Energy, told The Circuit. “People want to feel safe. They want to ensure that, no matter what happens around them, their homes will have electricity 24/7.” 

Under a new set of policies being rolled out this year by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Energy, property owners are being encouraged to install solar panels and battery systems to generate electricity for their own use. The changes, initiated before the war, are aimed at reducing peak pressures on the grid and improving electricity management across the emirate.

In turn, solar businesses such as Volts see a growing market among homeowners who want to turn their villas into virtual power plants – running everything from air conditioning systems to electric cars off panels installed on their rooftops.

One Emirati client has become almost fully self-sufficient, powering two electric vehicles and an integrated smart home system off his family’s home grid.

“He is a fairly advanced user – he even mines Bitcoin at home,”  Mlynchik said. “While the villa is not ultra-luxury, he truly believes in the future…  He enjoys the experience.”

The UAE has invested extensively in solar projects, including Dubai’s Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park and Abu Dhabi’s Al Dhafra Solar Power Plant, which rank among the biggest in the world. Its green energy giant Masdar, which is backed by Mubadala, ADNOC and national energy company TAQA, is building the world’s first “round the clock” gigascale project in Abu Dhabi. Masdar has also deployed tens of billions for international projects, recently going on a buying spree in Europe.

It is surprising, therefore, that the country’s rooftops have remained relatively untapped. 

Analysis by London consulting firm Knight Frank of more than 266,000 buildings across Abu Dhabi identified almost 43 square kilometers (16.5 square miles) of usable rooftop space – equivalent to 6,000 soccer fields. A similar rooftop inventory for Riyadh revealed 158.2 square kilometers of usable space.

“I was astonished by what we found. I really didn’t expect it to be quite so impactful,” Wesley Thomson, Knight Frank’s Head of Environmental, Social and Governance for the Middle East and Africa, told The Circuit.

Energy has long been plentiful and cheap in the oil-rich Gulf states, which, alongside a lack of regulatory clarity or incentives, has left them lagging the world in rooftop installations, despite championing enormous utility-scale solar farms.

Even with rooftops, the economics favor larger installations, Thomson said. Systems exceeding 10,000 square meters can achieve generation costs of around 0.08 AED per kilowatt hour, close to utility-scale solar park benchmarks in the UAE, which are already among the cheapest in the world. In Riyadh, Knight Frank’s modeling suggests large commercial rooftops could recover installation costs in seven years. 

While reliable projections are hard to come by, a high-level estimate based on the size of usable rooftop space could imply a combined capital deployment opportunity in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh of $12 billion to $30 billion, Thomson said.

Chinese manufacturers – which dominate roughly 80% of global panel production, led by JinkoSolar, LONGi and Trina Solar – stand to be the primary beneficiaries of any surge in rooftop solar installations in the region. But investment opportunities extend beyond manufacturing panels.

Local companies that have carved out niches in the UAE include Sharaf DG Energy, which offers residential solar packaged with financing options, and ALEC Energy, a division of ALEC Engineering and Contracting, owned by The Investment Corporation of Dubai, which has installed solar systems at sites including Yas Water World in Abu Dhabi and Wynn Al Marjan Resort in Ras Al Khaimah.

Volts, which was supported by Masdar City’s Catalyst accelerator, had originally planned to build a lithium-ion battery cell gigafactory in Abu Dhabi, before realizing that such a project could not compete with Chinese firms.

Mlynchik said the company decided to shift its focus to value-added products and is now designing energy storage systems that target Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s high-end villas, using high-quality Chinese battery cells. 

Its flagship system delivers 50 kW of power with storage capacity ranging from 70 to 120 kWh, enough to easily meet the power needs of a large compound and store several days’ supply of energy. 

Volts is also working with off-grid glamping sites – popular desert retreats with upscaled tent accommodation – where solar panels and small wind turbines preserve the peace and quiet of the wilderness. “If a diesel generator is rattling in the background, it ruins the entire experience,” Mlynchik said.

Another factor is the shift towards electric vehicles, which goes hand in hand with the region’s embrace of autonomous transport systems. 

Knight Frank’s Thomson sees a future where the UAE embraces the kind of transformation happening in places like California, where a home becomes a “virtual power plant,” generating its own power to run electrified systems and EVs, as well as feeding back into the grid.

“We’re not quite there yet … but what this policy does is it opens the door to that potential. And it couldn’t be more timely,” he said.

ACWA Power works to cut desalination costs, fossil fuel use

ACWA Power, the Saudi electricity and desalination company that operates in more than a dozen countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, says it has cut energy consumption by 80% over the past decade while reducing its use of fossil fuels.

With its main offices in Riyadh and Jeddah, ACWA Power started moving away from conventional thermal plants two decades ago to adopt more efficient membrane technology. It devotes formidable resources to research and development to address water scarcity in some of the world’s most arid regions.

Backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Sanabil Investments and a cohort of private investors, ACWA Power employs 4,000 people and holds a portfolio of assets worth $93 billion and trades on the Tadawul stock exchange in Riyadh. The company operates across Saudi Arabia, as well as in the UAE, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, South Africa, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In an interview with The Circuit, ACWA Power’s Executive Vice President for Innovation & New Technology Thomas Altmann talks about the company’s efforts to bring down the cost of desalination while embracing hydrogen and other more sustainable sources of energy.

Given the global challenge of water scarcity,, what advancements in desalination technology are most promising and how is ACWA Power contributing to innovation?

ACWA Power, since its inception, has been  innovating from day one to become what it is today. The most prominent example is when we entered the market in Saudi Arabia in 2005 [and] it was dominated by thermal desalination. In our first bid, which was [at the Red Sea port of] Shuaiba, we had to use thermal technology. But in the second opportunity, we pushed back and requested to keep the technology open, and it happened. So we were not forced to use a certain technology. We were allowed to innovate and we basically brought large-scale membrane technology to Saudi Arabia.

The result was dramatic because we reduced energy consumption significantly. For more than a decade we have reduced the energy consumption, and at the same time, the carbon footprint of a desalination plant by more than 80% and this is innovation in action. We had a significant impact in reducing tariffs [and prices]. The desalination tariffs went down to less than half. We have the lowest desalination tariffs in the world.

How is ACWA Power making  desalination more sustainable and energy-efficient in the region?

First of all, we reduced the carbon footprint by threefold. Also in a different initiative, we are reducing chemical consumption, not only energy consumption. We have several initiatives. One is based on a technology innovation where we replaced certain chemicals, which can be more harmful than others. We reduced them or eliminated them, and we have a patented technology to use carbon dioxide to inject into the seawater rather than organic chemicals from suppliers. The second initiative is we started introducing AI and machine learning in our plants. We have developed the first algorithm in-house with the objective to reduce dosing of chemicals. After deploying the algorithm for one chemical in one plant, we saved 12% on chemicals.

What are the challenges for desalinating water now as we are moving into energy transition? 

Most of our desalination plans receive power from the grid. The grid in Saudi Arabia, for example, is still dependent on fossil fuel. So we have a research project at ACWA Power to help us understand how we can get to the point to have… a green water, 100% renewable-driven water desalination. 

We have done this already on our hydrogen project. We have a 100% renewable-driven hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia. So now there is no reason why we cannot do desalination. So we have done a lot of studies. The three key components to make it happen is number one, we have a very low-cost renewable energy source. We have many gigawatts, and we have the lowest tariffs in the world. The second component is to reduce energy consumption in desalination. Now the factor that is missing is solar and wind power. They are intermittent. They don’t operate the whole day, 24 hours, just when the sun is shining. Wind is often available just for eight hours day. So we can mix. We need a battery. ACWA Power was able to excel on the battery side. In our Red Sea project, we have probably still the largest battery for energy storage in the world. So these factors together help us to think about a 100% renewable energy-based desalination plant without increasing the cost. This is the key.

The fourth component is artificial intelligence and automation. So we are increasing the level of automation. We are increasing artificial intelligence. We have several projects. We have several AI projects in the company. Also on the solar side, we are using many robotic systems for cleaning the PV panels. So we also have embarked on a project, which uses AI technologies we need in the desalination plant to convert it to 100% fully automated.

Are there any innovative initiatives that ACWA Power is taking that could be used around the region?

First of all our approach is: we are embracing open innovation. We are trying to convince all our partners and all our stakeholders and market participants to open up and to work more in a collaborative open innovation environment where we share ideas, where we share resources, and then the whole sector will make more progress. 

There’s always, of course, certain specific things which you have good ideas, but you can patent them, but you can still share, and this sharing is very beneficial for everybody. We are not a manufacturer of any equipment, so we are very open. We can work with everybody. We are bringing a lot of technology companies from China which are very helpful. In order to support and to foster the local innovation ecosystem. We have created the ACWA power innovation days. The last one was in January this year in KAUST University, which was a big success with more than 500 people and many online. Next year we will do the third edition which will be attracting 1000 people. 

What are the key trends in terms of desalination that we are witnessing in the region?

Our initiative so far was to make the best commercially available technology and bring it to the absolute limit. ACWA Power can push technologies to the limits, while still being reliable, safe and sustainable.  So we have several tracks. One track is to apply the latest technologies in the best possible way and produce the lowest tariffs and the lowest energy consumption. This is [the technology of] reverse osmosis. We have a second track, which is the innovation track.

We are engaging with startups. There’s one from Spain [with which we] have signed an exclusive agreement. They have a disruptive desalination technology which is not based on membranes, which has the potential to reduce energy, not by 3% but by 25%. We are building a pilot plant, together with King Abdullah City for Science and Technology. Our ambition is to create a new Guinness record for desalination power consumption in the first quarter of next year. But in innovation, we cannot promise. We feel positive that we can deliver, but there’s no guarantee. We do it to stay competitive.