Abu Dhabi's state-owned green energy firm Masdar on Tuesday has invested $3 billion out of $15 billion it earmarked last year for renewable ventures in the oil rich Gulf state and abroad, it said on Tuesday.
"Another $10 billion by late 2015, early 2016, is our current plan," Masdar Chief Executive Sultan al-Jaber told the news agency Reuters in an interview.
Masdar plans to install solar, wind and hydrogen power plants and is building the carbon-neutral Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, which Jaber said should be ready by 2018 or 2019.
Some 1,100 megawatts of solar plants will be built out of a planned 1,600 MW in green energy projects needed to meet a target of generating 7 percent of electricity in Abu Dhabi from renewable sources by 2020.
Some of the plants will be photovoltaic (PV), which directly convert the sun's rays to electricity, and concentrated solar power, which concentrates rays to drive a steam turbine.
Masdar has already connected a 10 MW PV plant to the grid, and expects the 100 MW Shams 1 CSP plant to be on line by late 2011, and the Shams 2 plant in mid-2013.
"We are closing financing for Shams 1 as we speak," Jaber said on the sidelines of the European Future Energy Forum in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao.
Jaber said Masdar had developed its own site to test how effectively different solar power technologies could work far from where they have so far been used commercially.
Germany is the world's leading producer of solar power, followed by Spain. Government subsidies have boosted renewable energy projects in both countries.
"PV has been researched and developed in countries that do not have anything in common with out environment - high solar radiation, dust, humidity," Jaber said.
The impact of dust on PV was very low, and a little higher on CSP, he said.
Jaber said Masdar planned to announce details by September of two new CSP projects in Spain. It is already building the 17 MW Gemasolar plant jointly with Spanish firm Sener, which is due to come on line in 2011.
"We are keen on exploring other partnerships, either with Sener, and others, or other companies with opportunities for us to be interested in," he said.
Masdar could not yet say what the investment structure would be for a $3 billion carbon capture and storage (CCS) project due to be operational by 2013, but it would finance the FEED (front end engineering and design) stage.
"Then we will develop a joint venture or partnership structure whereby we and a technology provider as well as a strategic investor would come in," Jaber said.
The project aims to capture around 2 million tonnes of carbon gas per year to begin with, and use it to boost recovery in Abu Dhabi's oilfields.
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