An attractive renewables landscape

Mothana Bahjeat Qteishat, Jinko Power Technology Company’s vice-president and head of international tenders, talks to The Energy Year about factors attracting investors to the UAE’s renewables scene and the traction recently gained by large-scale PV projects. Jinko Power develops solar power plants, and is currently building the world’s largest solar (and the country’s second GW-scale) project in the UAE, Al Dhafra.

What factors make the UAE’s renewables scene attractive for investors?
Both the offtaker and the government take on much of the development and pre-development scope, allocating the land and then securing the approvals and permits associated with it – i.e., securing the grid connection, preliminary environmental assessment and the studies associated with that. In other parts of the world, the development cycle (from initiation to the notice to proceed) takes at least two to three years, which reduces the time and risk. The pre-development risk and associated premium, if any, is absorbed by the government. Noor and Al Dhafra are clear examples when it comes to fast implementation, considering that the timeline between bid submission, financial close and notice to proceed was around eight months compared to other countries/regions that could go well above two to three years.
The investment environment in the country is very safe and thus very attractive. The country has secured the lowest levelised electricity cost (LEC) multiple times and the status quo has helped to achieve this – there is limited development risk, available land and a convenient environment for facilitating long-term PPAs. The UAE checks all the boxes for investors.
Jinko Power is by far the largest Chinese investor in the country’s renewable energy sector, and we will be here for the long run. We are also witnessing a very pro-investor environment across the whole GCC region, which allows us to keep expanding to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman. As a result, giants from all over the world are doing the same, bidding aggressively for the current and upcoming projects.

What traction has large-scale PV gained as compared to distributed generation in the UAE?
Both decarbonising and renewable energy targets set in the UAE are ambitious. We are very proud to contribute to realising these targets with more than 3 GW of clean solar energy through large-scale projects, such as Noor Abu Dhabi and Al Dhafra. These are instrumental in achieving the country’s net-zero target for 2050 and are an important contributor to the UAE’s energy diversification and security strategy.
Likewise, large-scale projects like these lead to the reduction of the cost of electricity. Thanks to them, the price of solar PV has become extremely affordable and competitive. This contrasts with the scarce traction of distributed generation.
The UAE has made a strong bet on large-scale projects. Meanwhile, distributed generation can be suitable for powering industry or rooftops but the lack of legal and policy incentives has not made it attractive enough. Distributed generation is equivalent to a democratisation of both energy and know-how. It is the right way to create local markets and to have real know-how transfer, which means that the UAE still has a long way to go in this regard.

Looking at the solar sector, what factors make Jinko Power unique and what kind of diversification are you considering?
Despite being the smallest in this market in terms of balance sheet, we believe that we know solar better than anyone else. We are dedicated solely to renewable energies – predominantly solar, but now we are looking into other technologies. We have secured our first wind project in China, which is at the development stage. Our diversification strategy is in motion, touching solar, wind and storage, and we are also looking into hydrogen.
We started to build in-house capacity for battery storage a couple of years ago as we believe that in order to maximise the penetration and utilisation of renewable energy, battery storage on a standalone basis is essential for any country with ambitious renewable energy targets. Standalone battery storage solutions are key for countries like the UAE that don’t have a solid distributed generation network. Likewise, green hydrogen/ammonia could be a natural extension of our solar business. If you want to generate green hydrogen, electricity represents 40% of the total cost, which a solar plant can provide at competitive rates.
Despite technological advances, solar is expected to remain a significant part of this massive capex investment. This means that we will be directly or indirectly involved in green hydrogen/ammonia ventures moving forwards, being interested in the development and/or investment aspects of green hydrogen/ammonia production. Yet, this segment is still at an early stage, requiring offtakers to make any green hydrogen/ammonia project bankable and economically viable.
Until then, standalone solar energy will still be our “bread and butter,” with our manufacturing associate company Jinko Solar covering modular manufacturing of solar technology. Despite the fact that Jinko Power and Jinko Solar are two standalone entities, they are a perfect complement to each other. We have been doing solar for over a decade, which has brought us to a point where we have built a very strong expertise and track record.

To what extent did Noor Abu Dhabi create a key learning curve for subsequent solar projects? What new technologies have you implemented since?
The 1.2-GW Noor Abu Dhabi project was a wonderful jump into the international market by Jinko Power as well as catapulting the UAE’s renewable energy ambitions. It was delivered on time and under budget, which is not common in the energy industry. There were of course diverse challenges we had to learn from in the area of cleaning, for example, but all stakeholders saw this as a learning curve.
For instance, one of our major hurdles was determining how to clean 8 square kilometres of solar modules daily. We introduced a robotic cleaning solution, which was used for the first time on a large scale globally, that can clean the 3.2 million panels in only a couple of hours. A few years ago, cleaning such a plant was a massive challenge for the industry simply because manual cleaning or cleaning with water was unviable for a project of this scale. We also introduced high -efficiency mono PERC panels that meant better generation per square metre.
In the Al Dhafra project, we have upgraded our technologies, implementing for example bifacial modules of both P and N type technologies. These enable the generation of the electricity from both sides of a panel. For projects of this size, we always seek to be at the forefront of technology, be it in terms of modules, mounting systems or cleaning solutions. The Noor Abu Dhabi project was a key learning curve for us that allowed us to implement more optimal solutions for Al Dhafra and subsequent ventures.

To what extent is the Al Dhafra solar project a success story despite its recent difficulties?
The 2.1-GW Al Dhafra solar plant is the largest single-site solar project in the world and has been developed via a major consortium formed by TAQA, Masdar, EDF Renewables and Jinko Power. In January 2023, Suntech completed the delivery of all of its 680-MW PV modules, which use 2-mm-thick glass on the front and back sides, which improves the mechanical load capacity and reduces the maximum deformation by 37% compared with conventional structures. This reduces the risk of the modules cracking given harsh desert conditions including strong winds, high temperatures and sand storms.
In addition to this, Al Dhafra has a long-term 30-year PPA with EWEC [Emirates Water and Electricity Company] at an LEC of USD 0.0135 per kWh, which is a record-low tariff in the UAE and the world. This is thanks to our crystalline, bifacial module technology, which has 22.49% efficiency performance. This is also thanks to the work of all the stakeholders that have implemented their know-how and capabilities to make it a reality.
Interestingly, we were awarded the project in May 2020 and achieved the financial closure in December 2020, which means we had to navigate through the depth of the Covid-19 pandemic. Not only did we have to tackle the diverse health restrictions, but also the global supply chain crisis and shortage of materials coming from China, which affected us. Around 90% of solar industry materials come from China and prices had risen by more than 30-40% by mid-2021. We managed to navigate the crisis well but we did suffer a delay in our COD [commercial operations date].
The project is in its last phase, having already started injecting energy to the Abu Dhabi grid in Q4 2022, and is expecting COD by mid-2023. This project happens to be the biggest among several regional projects that were tendered and started construction, and even so, we have been successful in energising the plant and connecting full capacity to the grid – potentially as the first among plants from that pool of projects.

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