FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Abu Dhabi Built the Biggest Solar Power Plant in Africa

This solar plant will run 10% of Mauritania.
Photos: Clement Tardif

Earlier today, the biggest solar power plant in Africa was ceremoniously brought online in Mauritania. The 15-megawatt plant will reportedly meet a full one-tenth of the nation's electricity demand, and keep the lights on in some 10,000 homes. Mauritania is currently crippled by severe energy shortages, and its frail grid is evidenly propped up with a sputtering network of diesel generators.

So the Sheikh Zayed Solar Power Plant is good news for Mauritanians everywhere; the country's power demands are growing fast, and the blast of solar will help keep the juice running during peak hours.

Advertisement

If the name of the plant sounds a bit out of place, that's because it was built by Masdar, Abu Dhabi's national clean energy company. And if you've heard the name Masdar before, it's probably because you've heard of Masdar City, a futuristic township on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi that will eventually, hopefully, be the world's first 100% carbon neutral city. But Masdar is in the clean energy business worldwide, too as this Mauritania project attests.

The plant consists of some 30,000 thin-film micrograph panels, and they were evidently stacked into the ground instead of cemented into a concrete foundation in a novel installation process that decreases costs and cuts down on materials.

“Energy access is a pathway to economic and social opportunity,” Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said, according to a statement from Masdar. “Electrification, through sustainable sources of energy, is critical in ensuring our people have access to basic services and is a step toward improving our infrastructure and long-term economic development."

Absolutely—one of the biggest questions still dangling over the climate problem is whether developing nations like Mauritania will be able to power their fast-growing economies with clean energy. If Africa, Brazil, India, and China continue to rely on fossil fuels, it's game over for a stable climate system (obviously, in this arena, the United States needs to gets its act together above all).

If we're going to avert catastrophic warming, and a future that looks like James Hansen's "ice-free, human-free" planet, we're going to need more like this, please.