200MW rooftop solar power to reach UAE grid this year
The increased share of rooftop solar power and prevention of more than 1,000 power blackouts in the UAE in recent years have been possible due to digitisation in the energy sector, a senior official said here at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week yesterday.
Two hundred megawatts (MW) of rooftop solar power will connect to the UAE’s grid by the end of this year, said Dr Mattar Al Niyadi, undersecretary at the UAE Ministry of Energy, during a panel discussion on ‘Technology, disruption and digitisation’.
Technologies and digitisation have reshaped the business in the energy sector. “For example, we used to have only public utilities that generated electricity. Now consumers can also do it. In the UAE, we expect that 200MW rooftop solar power will feed the grid by the end of this year,” he said.
Electricity’s mobility is another example. If one power system fails in a Gulf nation, another system can immediately swing into action within seconds and supply power to the failed system, without giving any hint about a blackout.
“It prevented 1,300 power blackouts in the country since the GCC power grid came into existence in 2009,” Al Niyadi said.
The consumer does not come to know about such interruptions at all. Only the man sitting in the control room knows about them as he immediately sources the supply from another power system in the GCC grid, he explained.
“This would not have been possible without digitisation,” the official said. The flow of electricity will further change with technological advancements.