Enowa — the energy, water and hydrogen subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion high-tech mega-city Neom — said on Thursday it will set up a new Hydrogen and Innovation Development Centre (HIDC) to boost its research on the clean fuel.
Scheduled to open next year, the new facility is located in Neom’s advanced manufacturing and innovation city. It aims to accelerate lab-to-market solutions in the fields of hydrogen research, green fuel production, utilisation and transport.
Our ambition is to drive innovation and promote the economic implementation of future clean energy supplies
Peter Terium,
Enowa’s chief executive
HIDC will be a testing ground for new technologies in the clean energy industry and will be a collaborative learning community for research institutions focused on hydrogen and the circular carbon economy, Enowa said.
Neom is becoming one of the global accelerators for the hydrogen economy, Peter Terium, Enowa’s chief executive, said.
“Our ambition is to drive innovation and promote the economic implementation of future clean energy supplies. While the successful activation of ground-breaking technologies is important, fresh thinking and new energy solutions are just as essential,” he added.
Hydrogen, which can be produced from both renewable energy and natural gas, is expected to play a key role in the coming years as economies and industries transition to a low-carbon world to mitigate climate change.
Enowa aims to produce large quantities of green hydrogen that can be adopted by many industries across the kingdom.
Green hydrogen has gained traction amid the energy transition and can be used with various applications as a power source, e-fuel, chemical and fertiliser across many industries.
Using hydrogen fuel cell technology, HIDC's future projects include a filling station and distribution technology for zero-emission cars, buses, lorries and other clean energy applications.
Founded last year, Enowa is supplying water and electricity to the Neom community while providing sustainable fuels such as green hydrogen to international users, all of which are generated locally through processes powered by renewable energy.
It has partnered with various organisations such as Saudi Aramco and Air Products Qudra to fast-track its research and business development.
“We look forward to attracting other global trailblazers to create a new future that will foster the next generation of hydrogen technologies,” Mr Terium said.
HIDC will “validate hydrogen innovations”, Enowa said. It will also work with Aramco on synthetic fuel development.
“This collaboration will enable HIDC to tap into Aramco’s experience in engineering, energy logistics and fuels research and development and to align with Aramco's ongoing efforts to explore the potential for hydrogen-based, low-carbon fuels to support the global energy transition,” Enowa said.
Neom is a perfect place for Aramco to test its in-house technologies, Aramco’s chief technology officer Ahmad Al Khowaiter said.
“Its vast potential to generate wind and solar power also offers a unique opportunity to deliver renewable hydrogen to power the growth of low carbon synthetic fuels while offering a platform to test their commercial viability,” he said.
Neom expects to be the first economy to utilise green hydrogen as power at scale and pave the way for the hydrogen economy globally.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
The years Ramadan fell in May
More on Quran memorisation:
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Dr Afridi's warning signs of digital addiction
Spending an excessive amount of time on the phone.
Neglecting personal, social, or academic responsibilities.
Losing interest in other activities or hobbies that were once enjoyed.
Having withdrawal symptoms like feeling anxious, restless, or upset when the technology is not available.
Experiencing sleep disturbances or changes in sleep patterns.
What are the guidelines?
Under 18 months: Avoid screen time altogether, except for video chatting with family.
Aged 18-24 months: If screens are introduced, it should be high-quality content watched with a caregiver to help the child understand what they are seeing.
Aged 2-5 years: Limit to one-hour per day of high-quality programming, with co-viewing whenever possible.
Aged 6-12 years: Set consistent limits on screen time to ensure it does not interfere with sleep, physical activity, or social interactions.
Teenagers: Encourage a balanced approach – screens should not replace sleep, exercise, or face-to-face socialisation.
Source: American Paediatric Association
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
