UAE becomes world’s first country to produce aluminium using solar power

  • Date: 19-Jan-2021
  • Source: Gulf Business
  • Sector:Oil & Gas
  • Country:UAE
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UAE becomes world’s first country to produce aluminium using solar power

The UAE has become the world's first country to produce aluminium using solar power.

Under an agreement struck between the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) and Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) on Monday, January 18, DEWA will supply EGA's smelter with solar power from the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, located in Dubai.

The solar park has a current installed capacity of 1,013 megawatts using photovoltaic solar panels.

DEWA is implementing an additional 1,850 megawatts of projects using solar panels and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). Eventually, its capacity will reach 5,000MW by 2030.

DEWA will supply EGA's smelter with 560,000 megawatt hours of solar power annually from the facility, sufficient to produce 40,000 tonnes of aluminium in the first year itself.

Read: Dubai's Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park to have world's largest energy storage capacity

EGA will in turn supply this solar-powered aluminium to global customers under the new product name CelestiAL.

The fourth phase of the solar park will, upon its completion, have the largest energy storage capacity in the world of 15 hours. It will be operational in stages starting from Q3 2021, and will provide clean energy for 320,000 residences, and will reduce 1.6 million tonnes of carbon emissions