Kuwait

The fossil fuel rich Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region faces mounting pressure to diversify its energy mix. While solar is cheap, it faces significant sociopolitical and economic challenges.

Scientists in Czechia have conducted a techno-economic analysis of a green hydrogen production system powered exclusively by photovoltaic and wind energy. The system uses surplus energy for water treatment and, according to its creator, can achieve a levelized cost of hydrogen of $3.12/kg.

Kuwait has tendered a 1.1 GW solar project to supply electricity to the Ministry of Electricity, Water, and Renewable Energy under a 30-year power purchase agreement (PPA).

An international research team has investigated how air conditioning may be used to reduce the operating temperature of PV panels. The researchers not only found that the proposed approach is technically viable, but they also tested the use of excess heat from the panels for drying dishes.

The n-type cell was built with phosphorus-doped LPCVD poly-Si passivating contacts and achieved a remarkable open-circuit voltage of 691.7 mV. According to its creators, with some adjustments the cell may be suitable for commercial production.

With the Dabdaba/Al-Dibdibah solar field now having been combined with the Shagaya clean energy development, bids for the former’s EPC contract were reportedly received last week. It is unclear whether the facility will have a generation capacity of 1 GW, 1.5 GW or ‘up to 3 GW.’

The Middle East, and the Gulf in particular, has been home to record low solar tariffs in recent years. Major projects are being awarded via tenders, with prices gradually closing in on a remarkable 1 USDct/kWh. Of course, this is no coincidence due to the region’s favorable solar conditions: availability of cheap and sunny desert land, low labor costs, cheap project financing, supportive tax regimes, large projects benefitting from economies of scale, well designed tender structures, and decreasing PV component prices.

The state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation has reportedly ended its involvement with the gigawatt scale Dabdaba solar field and asked the national body responsible for drumming up private sector investment to merge it with the 2 GW Shagaya renewables development.

The, variously reported, 1 GW or 1.5 GW, $1.2-1.43 billion ‘Dibdibah’ or ‘Dabdaba’ solar project is reportedly at risk of being abandoned altogether. The ambitious project was supposed to have been tendered in the first quarter of 2018 with a view to completion this year.

The airline industry has been among the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic; carriers are in ‘freefall’ as Glen Peters, research director at the Center for International Climate and Environment Research in Oslo recently wrote, with governments mulling stimulus packages for airline bailouts. How we react to the coronavirus outbreak is crucial for society as a whole and the solar and energy storage industries can lead the charge in rewriting the status quo.