Solar farm covers more than 20 square kilometers of desert

UAE Al Dhafra Solar Power Plant covers more than 20 square kilometers of desert equipped with 4 million bifacial solar panels and can meet the electricity needs of nearly 200,000 households.

Al Dhafra solar farm seen from above. Photo: EWEC — Al Dhafra solar farm seen from above. Photo: *EWEC*

The Al Dhafra Solar Farm has a capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW) and is located 35 km from Abu Dhabi. The plant is jointly owned by Masdar Clean Energy, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA), EDF Renewables in France, JinkoPower in China and Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC), Interesting Engineering reported on November 20.

The plant is equipped with nearly 4 million bifacial solar panels, which are estimated to provide enough electricity to power 200,000 households and reduce 2.4 million tons of carbon emissions annually, equivalent to the emissions from 470,000 cars on the road. The most advanced bifacial solar panel technology allows for more efficient power supply by absorbing solar radiation from both the front and back of the panels.

According to Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the project represents a major step forward in solar energy efficiency, innovation and cost competitiveness.

The project also broke the cost record for a large-scale solar facility. Initially, the farm had one of the most competitive solar power prices at $0.0135/kWh, which was later reduced to $0.0132/kWh when it became commercially operational. The project also began supplying electricity to the national grid.

Over the past 15 years, the UAE has emerged as a prominent country in the solar energy sector. Currently, the UAE ranks second in the world in terms of solar energy usage per capita.

EWEC has just commissioned two more solar projects of the same scale as the Al Dhafra farm. In addition, it plans to build a 1 GW solar project in Abu Dhabi every year for the next 10 years as part of its strategy to further reduce carbon.

An Khang (According to Interesting Engineering )

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