ABU DHABI - Abu Dhabi's investments in renewable energy have reached AED8 billion, reflecting positively on the sustainability of the sector for future generations, said Awaidha Murshed Al Marar, Chairman of the Department of Energy.

In a statement to the Emirates News Agency, WAM, Al Marar said, "The emirate's investments in the clean energy sector will witness significant growth this year due to a number of new projects in the production of reverse osmosis water and solar electricity production, to be announced in the coming days during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2019."He added that Abu Dhabi's investments in the clean energy sector started in 2006 through Shams 1, the largest renewable energy project in operation in the Middle East at the cost of AED2.2 billion with a capacity of 100 megawatts. The solar field has 768 parabolic trough collectors to generate clean, renewable electricity.

"Abu Dhabi has built the world's largest independent solar power plant, Noor Abu Dhabi, in Sweihan with a capacity at 1.17GW at the cost of AED3.2 billion. An Asian consortium consisting of JinkoSolar of China and Marubeni of Japan offered a tariff of 2.42 cents per kWh, making it the lowest ever levelised cost of electricity bid for solar power," he explained.

Part of the production of the Noor Abu Dhabi power station, he noted, has been entered into the electricity network. The entire project is expected to be operational in April and will be connected to the Abu Dhabi electricity network.

Al Marar said that the department is preparing to launch new projects in the energy sector that will contribute to the sustainability of the energy sector in the emirate, including a new project to generate electricity from solar energy in Abu Dhabi with a capacity of 1500 MW in the first quarter of this year. In addition to preparing to design a project to produce reverse osmosis water on the main contractor by the end of Q3 2019.

"Abu Dhabi has been the best in producing water at the lowest prices, which is reflected positively on consumers," he concluded.

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