UAE Leapfrog Strategies: Builds $13.6B Solar Park, As Nigeria Begs For Investments In Refineries
The Oasis Reporters
April 29, 2019
It’s incredible to imagine that when the United Arab Emirates, UAE was inaugurating itself as a modern state, it sought help from Nigeria’s 1963 discarded Republican Constitution to form a union, 12 years after Nigeria’s independence.
It has commenced the construction of a $13.6B record-breaking solar park in the Dubai desert.
Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park could power up to 1.3 million homes and is set to be the largest single-site solar farm in the world, according to a CNN report.
(link: https://cnn.it/2XN5ZL1) cnn.it/2XN5ZL1
Dubai's Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park could power up to 1.3 million homes and is set to be the largest single-site solar farm in the world. https://t.co/IhWvw89OMm pic.twitter.com/OgCcgQqDAF
— CNN (@CNN) April 27, 2019
Plans are in place to erect solar panels and concentrated solar power arrays with a cumulative capacity of 5,000 megawatts — what would be the largest single-site solar park in the world.
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, viewed via Google Earth. The park started with a 13-megawatt photovoltaic array in 2013, adding 200 megawatts in phase two and 800 megawatts in phase three (due for completion in 2020). Dubai Electricity and Water Authority say the total investment for the solar park could reach $13.6 billion.
Besides powering as many as 1.3 million homes, it will reduce carbon emissions by 6.5 million tonnes annually.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy and the continent’s largest crude oil producer but finds itself chronically unable to provide enough electricity to its almost 180 million inhabitants. Many businesses have closed down or relocated due to the nation’s scandalously low output on power. The power companies produce less than the output that the City of New York alone consumes.
Worse still, it has moribund refineries and therefore imports a very huge chunk of the country’s gasoline requirements to which it depletes the treasury to pay petroleum subsidy in trillions of naira.
Yet the country has a crop of well educated elite who cannot find work or be engaged in pursuits to leapfrog it’s energy sector due to restrictive policies of government that locks down full deregulation and privatization of the energy sector.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has been wooing Qatar on investments In refineries, power and the economy and many Nigerians see it as being on the wrong lane.
The President played host to the Emir of Qatar, His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, at State House, Abuja, on Tuesday last week.
This was contained in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.
“We invite you to invest in our refineries, pipelines, power sector, aviation, agriculture, education, and many others so that you can have your management here to oversee the investment. We need your expertise.
Qatar in the UAE has certainly achieved almost 95 percent literacy. But many states in Southern Nigeria can boast of a significant percentage of its educated citizenry, with millions expressing their skills and working abroad including in the UAE.
Dubai has a significant foreign populace sharing in it’s vision and working in it. Even if they accept to manage Nigeria’s rickety refineries, the surprise may be that they’d be entirely indigenous Nigerians, working in Dubai. This is because the country fails to harness it’s diverse population for growth.
“We need help with the recharge of Lake Chad, as it is not a project that the concerned countries can handle alone.
“Recharging the lake will bring back fishing, farming, animal husbandry, and the youths won’t be attracted by insurgency or illegal migration.
“We want Qatar to be involved because of the humanitarian nature of the endeavour,” President Buhari said.
Sheikh Hamad Al-Thani, whose visit is his first to Nigeria, lauded the relationship between both countries and urged that it should be solidified.
“We share a lot of similarities in different areas. We need to enhance bilateral trade and economic cooperation.
We are willing to do a lot more with Nigeria, and will continue to work on investment opportunities of mutual benefit,” he added.
“The relationship between our countries is very good. We just have to build on it,” the emir said.
Most significantly, Dubai that is in a union which includes Qatar is moving into cleaner Solar energy, yet Nigeria is begging them to invest in the vanishing fossil fuels technology because the most populous African nation is not yet ready to leapfrog into 21st Century technology, preferring it’s comfort zone that is fast diminishing.
Credit: Google Earth, Tom Page, CNN Max Burnell, CNN, Twitter, DEWA,
In-house commentary.
