The region may be 'sunburnt,' but it's still struggling to reach its solar power potential.
The solar energy research field remains a lightly charted territory in the Middle East; sun-drenched but miles away from utilizing its solar potential. In a series of new features, Nature Middle East explores what are researchers across the region doing to tap into the sun's energy, and how successful they have been so far.
A few countries across the Middle East are making strides in the right direction - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is hard at work looking for new material that can capture solar energy more efficiently.
Analysts Jean-Luc Bredas, director of the Solar and Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center at KAUST, and Mark Vermeesch, the centre's managing director, explain that Saudi Arabia's renewable energy targets are ambitious, but with "the appropriate choice of energy conversion technologies and installations," it can have one of the lowest costs of renewable energy in the world.
In the United Arab Emirates, Masdar, an eco-city within its capital Abu Dhabi, aims to be one of the world's most sustainable cities. Harbouring Shams 1, one of the largest power plants in the Middle East, Masdar Institute also spearheads research efforts into solar energy to improve efficiency and bring down cost.
There are hurdles, some of which have brought down what was possibly the most ambitious industrial solar initiative in the region: Desertec. With a projected budget of €400 billion and the financial backing of 19 major shareholders at its onset, the enterprise was beaten down by challenges. Only three of its shareholders remain on board and the scale of its projects was diminished significantly - dream of an electrically interconnected EU-MENA lost.
For one of the sunniest regions in the world, solar energy research still has a way to go. Often lacking the support of policymakers, can researchers make this bumpy road smoother?
For more information and to read the full coverage on "Nature Middle East" website: www.natureasia.com/en/nmiddleeast/article/10.1038/nmiddleeast.2015.5
Contact:
Pakinam Amer
Editor - Nature Middle East
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William Mahfoud
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william.mahfoud@macmillan.com
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About Nature Middle East
Nature Middle East is a comprehensive web portal for information on scientific and medical research in the Arabic-speaking Middle East, along with news on the research community and its activities. It provides readers with the latest science news, features and commentaries and highlights ground-breaking research from the region. The portal caters to a wide audience, from students to post-doctoral fellows to principal investigators, along with a general public interested in science. All the articles produced are freely available and offered in English and Arabic, to cater for the needs of a wide audience interested in this region of the world and to allow readers to engage with science in their native tongue and to inform the global audience on all the scientific advances of the Arab world. Nature Middle East is fully sponsored by the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC).
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