Masdar Clean Energy has announced its participation in Jordan's first major wind farm, marking its first renewable energy investment in the Middle East outside the UAE.
The Jordan Wind Project Company (JWPC), in which Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy firm owns a 31 per cent stake, yesterday announced a financing agreement to begin construction of a 38-turbine, 117 megawatts wind farm, which will be located in the southern governorate of Tafila.
Last week, Jordan’s government approved the project with the signing of a 20-year power purchase agreement, the country’s first such renewable energy contract.
The electricity generated by the facility will be sold to Jordan’s National Electric Power Company (Nepco).
The remainder of JWPC shares are held by the Euro-Mediterranean fund InfraMed, which has a 50 per cent stake, and Cyprus’s EP Global Energy, which has 19 per cent.
Upon its completion, the Tafila facility will produce about 400 gigawatt hours of electricity a year, displacing 235,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.
The wind farm is expected to increase Jordan’s total power capacity by 3 per cent.
Jordan is increasingly looking to diversify its energy supply mix because it has few domestic energy resources and it faces high oil and gas prices.
Furthermore, its electricity demand is forecast to grow by 5 per cent a year until 2020.
Jordan has a per capita average electricity usage of 2237 kilowatt-hours, according to the ERC.
Twelve months ago, the country became the first in the region to launch feed-in tariffs for renewable energy sources.
Jordan’s Electricity Regulatory Commission said buy-back rates of 120 Jordanian fils per kilowatt-hour would apply for solar-produced electricity, and 85 fils per kilowatt-hour for wind power.
Fawaz Al Muharrami, Masdar’s head of project delivery, said JWPC would announce the supplier of the wind turbines in the coming weeks.
The project is scheduled to break ground by the end of next March, he said.
Delivery of power is slated to begin next year, building up to full commercial operations in 2015.
“For wind projects you need to be very selective about locations,” Mr Al Muharrami said. “For projects this size, the Levant region and Egypt are especially suitable, given their higher wind speeds.”
JWPC is Masdar’s third wind project.
The UAE firm owns a 20 per cent stake in the London Array wind farm in the Thames Estuary. It has also developed the Port Victoria Wind Power Project in the Seychelles, a project funded by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development on behalf of the Seychelles government.
The Jordanian project will cost an estimated US$290 million.
A consortium will contribute 77 per cent of the funding. It is led by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, and the consortiums members include European Investment Bank, Eksport Kredit Fonden, the Dutch development bank FMO, the Opec Fund for International Development, and Europe Arab Bank.
The project’s shareholders will contribute the rest of the funding on a proportionate basis.
Masdar is conducting studies on potential wind farm projects in the UAE, according to Mr Al Muharrami.
While areas such as the Northern Emirates enjoy high wind speeds, the installation of turbines is often problematic because of the mountainous terrain.
jeverington@thenational.ae
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Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
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Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
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“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
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