My column last week about renewable energy in the Arab countries needs a follow up with respect to other countries that were not mentioned but with significant aspirations.

Interest in renewable electricity is so vast that the order of merit will undoubtedly change in the coming years. Take Algeria where the installed renewable energy capacity is 249MW; 224MW in photovoltaic (PV) and 25MW in concentrated solar power (CSP).

But this is very modest in comparison to what Algeria intends to do in accordance with national energy plans.

Last year Algeria announced it will invest $120 billion (Dh440.4 billion) in renewable energy projects. The plan is driven by the increase in population, energy demand and the aim to conserve oil and gas resources for as long as possible.

The plan calls for the production of 22GW of renewable energy by 2030, which would represent 27 per cent of electricity demand.

The first project was tendered late last year for a 4,000MW PV power plant and local manufacturing of equipment and materials. This would generate significant employment gains.

The plan also included the enacting of laws and feed-in tariffs for solar and wind power aimed at attracting interest from local and international investors and independent power producers (IPP), as well as facilitate debt financing.

However, due to stringent provisions with respect to local manufacturing and content, some doubt whether the current tender would be successful, especially as the authorities insist on a 51 per cent share for Algerian entities (mainly Sonatrach and Sonelgas).

Associated industries

Recently, Mourad Louadah, president of the renewable energy division of local trade industry association, even ventured to say that the 4GW tender for solar projects “is doomed to fail”.

I hope this will not be the case and that the plan will succeed in creating the other industries associated with renewable energy power, even if it is to be achieved gradually. Especially as there are in operation already two PV module manufacturing facilities with a combined capacity of 105MW and they are owned by private Algerian firms in association with European companies.

At the same time, I believe a project of 4GW is too large for comfort and smaller projects built in stages may have been a better idea.

Kuwait is another country with ambitious plans for renewable energy as electricity demand is growing so fast and will eat up a lot of the hydrocarbon resources. According to the Ministry of Electricity and Water, energy demand will triple by 2030 from what it is now and that electricity demand would be 30GW.

The Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research was charged with conducting feasibility that would lead to diversify energy supply by viable renewable energy technologies and to map out potential solar and wind energy possibilities, both on utility and distributed scales.

The current capacity is modest and composed of 36MW of PV and 10MW of wind energy, but with the aim is to achieve 15 per cent share of renewables in the energy mix by 2030, which would amount to 2000MW.

Modules

The Salmi Mini-wind Farm of 2.4MW was established to test and measure the performance of equipment and located near the site of the first 70MW Shagaya Renewable Energy Park. This could be finished soon, costing $380 million and including an energy storage system of nine hours based on molten salt. The second and third stages are of 930MW and 1,000MW.

The Al-Abdaliyah project, currently at pre-qualification stage, will have a capacity of 280MW, where 220MW will be in PV and the rest in CSP.

The renewables projects discussed are for large-scale electricity generation but thousands of small renewable energy modules for household purposes and water pumping in irrigation add up to a sizeable energy portion. Such modules have become inexpensive as to make them very attractive not only in remote locations but also in cities.

Even for some industrial and commercial applications there are now systems that are competitive compared to reliance on the grid.

Unfortunately, other Arab countries are lacking not only in installed capacity but even in planning for energy needs. I believe it is incumbent on governments, the Arab League, chambers of commerce and industry and energy organisations such as Opec to spread the word to take advantage of renewable energy for the economy, the environment and employment.

The writer is former head of the Energy Studies Department at the Opec Secretariat in Vienna.