The excess energy will be transferred to the municipal power grid for residents out of Masdar.
Environmena received the contract for the AED185 million plant from Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar).
The project is on track and we are very focused on it, Enviromena Chief Executive Officer Sami Khoreib said.
The installation of the panels is almost complete, as is the related work. We are on schedule to deliver this project on time, it will be fully operational next month and will be connected to the Abu Dhabi power grid.
Khoreib said that the company Enviromena was founded in 2007 by a group of people inspired by Masdar’s clean energy initiative.
We started with just four members in our team and we now have 25 partners. The company has grown six-fold and we see further growth in the future as the potential for clean energy in the region.
This Masdar project to deliver an operational 10mw clean power plant is our first contract and we hope it will be an inspiration for others to create a competitive market for alternative energy. The project is designed to save 15,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year and will have a lifespan of more than 25 years, which could be extended through maintenance and renovation work.
The initial function of the plant will be to power the construction of Masdar City. It is the foundation stone of a city without any source of power that generates CO2 emissions. This is just the beginning. Solar is a potential source of energy in Abu Dhabi and the entire Mena region. We have been able to attract talent with tremendous solar experience from around the globe to come here to Abu Dhabi to form a team. Hopefully they will become the leading solar design group in the country and the region. The plan is to become a global competitor.
Enviromena will become an exporter of advanced technology and will build efficient systems starting off in Abu Dhabi and the region, though our ambitions are global.
Khoreib said that the company was attracting interest from investors around the world and would be able to raise capital in North America, the UK, Switzerland and throughout the Mena region.
The Masdar contract is worth AED185 million, that is the cost up to the start of power production. With a team in Abu Dhabi we have been able to come up with the most efficient system in the world.
Khoreibi said that Environmena was holding talks about similar projects with the Abu Dhabi Government and a number of developers. A lot of interest has been shown by the government and various developers in the country and the region as a whole. We have some very exciting projects in the pipeline. What we have seen recently in the region is that solar power technology has triggered a tremendous response.
We want to use this 10mw plant as Enviromena’s launchpad to establish our position as one of the major integrators here in the region. We have already seen interest from government and private entities.
In the near future we will discuss some very exciting projects that will be very high profile. We are already discussing some, but unfortunately I cannot go into detail.
However, Khoreib said that most of the projects under discussion would involve roof-mounted solar panels that would produce energy for new properties, particularly towers in Abu Dhabi city and other parts of the emirate.
I can mention only one project, a very interesting roof-mounted installation on a new iconic building. Work on the project will start next year and it will provide power for a good part of the building.
We will also supply rooftop solar installations to some of the other developments coming up in the UAE and other parts of the region. We have some interesting projects from the Abu Dhabi Government and developers in the country as well as throughout the region.
We plan to become a publicly listed company in the near future. The goal of Enviromena is to be one of the first vehicles through which people can invest in clean technology in the region. We would like to be the first as we are already the first solar company here in Abu Dhabi.
Our IPO plan depends on the economic conditions but we would like to be the first clean-energy company to enter the Gulf stock markets.
But Khoreib said that he could not say when the float would happen, adding: Giving a timeframe for any kind of liquidity event in the current market conditions would be beyond anyone’s capabilities and would be unrealistic.
We are also focusing on new clean energy funds that want to invest in the potential of green technology, particularly solar power. We have already attracted some clean energy funds and continue to attract more from around the world.
Khoreib said that the global economic downturn had affected his business as it had made it difficult to obtain credit.
At this point of time we have not seen any delays in our business and in this particular project. Of course as a new, young company we have seen some affects from the credit crunch in the sense that we capitalise the firm through our shareholders, like any other business.
We have been affected one or the other. But at the same time we are very fortunate that we are an Abu Dhabi-based company and the alternative energy sector has so far met with a much, much softer lending than other industries offering services in other parts of the world.
