POWER December 2013 - 34

TOP PLANTS
Shams 1, Madinat Zayed, United
Arab Emirates
Owner/operator: Shams Power Co.
Courtesy: Masdar
The Arabian Peninsula might seem like the ideal location for a concentrating solar
power plant, but developers of the 100-MW Shams 1 CSP project in the UAE-the
world's largest at its inauguration in March-found that things were nowhere near
that simple.
Thomas Overton
T
he small nation of the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), despite having the
world's seventh-largest proven reserves
of both oil and gas, has been working hard
to diversify its economy over the past two
decades. Though hydrocarbons still account
for the large majority of its economic activity
and more than 80% of government revenue, it
has managed to significantly reduce the share
of hydrocarbons in its total export figures.
But the rapid growth of its financial and international
trade sectors over the past decade
has meant equally rapid growth in electricity
demand, which has stretched the UAE's grid
to its limits. According to International Energy
Agency estimates, the UAE's electricity
consumption in 2011 was 83.79 TWh, a
more than 50% increase since 2001. Installed
capacity, almost entirely natural gas-fired
thermal plants, was 23.25 GW in 2009, according
to the Energy Information Agency.
Despite its ample gas reserves, the UAE is
also working to diversify its generation portfolio,
having contracted with Korea Electric
34
Power Corp. to construct four nuclear reactors,
two of which are now under construction,
with the first scheduled to come online
in 2017 and the others expected to be completed
by 2020.
The country is also looking to boost renewable
generation. To this end, Abu Dhabi,
the largest emirate, formed the Masdar initiative
in 2006, with a focus on development of
renewable and sustainable energy technologies.
Masdar is a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi's
state-owned Mubadala Development Co.
Masdar's flagship project is Masdar City,
which aims to be the world's first low-carbon
municipality. Located just outside the capital,
it currently houses the Masdar Institute,
a joint effort with the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. A number of other high-technology
and renewable energy businesses and
organizations are planning to set up shop in
Masdar City, among them, the International
Renewable Energy Agency, Siemens Middle
East, and GE. Masdar has invested in a variety
of renewable energy projects, most nowww.powermag.com
tably
a 20% share in the 630-MW London
Array in the UK, currently the world's largest
offshore wind farm.
Still, the overall goal of Masdar is to diversify
the emirite's energy sector. In the late
2000s, it began planning for a major solar
power plant in the UAE to be called Shams-
" Sun " in Arabic.
No Simple Task
While a desert location might seem like the
ideal spot for a concentrating solar power
(CSP) plant, in fact, making one work in such
an area carried with it a number of significant
challenges that the designers had to overcome
in planning the project. The original design
for Shams 1 was proposed in 2007, and Masdar
tendered the project for bids in 2008.
Because the coastal areas of the UAE are
at a premium in terms of occupancy and land
values, and because such areas have lower
insolation, the project needed to be located in
the southern region of the country. These areas,
however, are characterized by loose and
POWER | December 2013
http://www.powermag.com

POWER December 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER December 2013

Contents
POWER December 2013 - Cover1
POWER December 2013 - Cover2
POWER December 2013 - Contents
POWER December 2013 - 2
POWER December 2013 - 3
POWER December 2013 - 4
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