Abu Dhabi-based renewables developer Masdar is looking to move into other European offshore wind markets such as Germany and the Netherlands, double the size of its Dudgeon project in the UK and add about 3GW more Middle East solar, its chief executive told Recharge.
In an interview ahead of the Masdar-backed Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi explained that his company is “definitely” looking to expand its offshore wind portfolio, which currently consists of shares in three UK projects — the 630MW London Array (20%), the 402MW Dudgeon project (35%), and the 30MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm (25%).
The Dudgeon Extension project jointly owned by Norway’s Equinor and Masdar – which will double the capacity of the operating wind farm – is now under way, he said. “It’s not early stage, it’s not late stage, it’s mid-stage,” he told Recharge. The project has been awarded an “agreement for lease” by the Crown Estate.
Future investment in offshore wind will definitely be with development partners, said Al Ramahi. “Everything we do is with partners, we don’t like to do anything on our own.”
Masdar — which is backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, with a remit to expand the oil-rich emirate’s interests beyond fossil fuels — also sees a bright future for floating wind, particular in the US and Japan, with Al Ramahi believing that the technology will become price-competitive within five to ten years.
“It depends on the scalability,” he said. “If there is going to be good opportunities for floating wind in terms of scale, I strongly believe that you will see prices being competitive and comparable to the [bottom] fixed.”
Al Ramahi also explains that Masdar will “at least triple” its current installed solar capacity of about 1.5GW in the Middle East over the next five years.
“When we started renewable energy in the Middle East, there was no appetite for renewable energy. The market was not there. So now the market is there. So it will at least triple. We know it will triple.”
This will mainly be driven by the region’s two biggest solar markets, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
He also expects a bright future for concentrating solar power (CSP) in the Middle East — but only in hybrid projects that also incorporate PV and molten-salt energy storage that can provide hours of heat after the sun sets. He points to the 800MW Noor Midelt CSP/PV/storage project in Morocco, owned by Masdar, EDF Renewables and local developer Green of Africa, which is due to be completed in 2022 with a tariff of 680 dirham ($71) per MWh.
“It’s a unique solution providing baseload electricity for a very competitive tariff,” he told Recharge. “It’s the cheapest baseload electricity in the world.”
He believes has no future without the storage element, as the technology is still much more expensive than PV. Only with the storage does it become cost-competitive.
“You will not get CSP without storage. The storage is a crucial part of CSP. It has to come with storage.”
