Dubai is currently developing a strategy to diversify power generation sources and improve efficiency to ensure an adequate energy supply through 2030.

Dubai produces less than four percent of the nation’s oil. The emirate is seeking to guarantee power supply and reduce emissions that contribute to global warming. The UAE holds about seven percent of the world’s crude reserves, with most of the country’s deposits of oil and natural gas located in the capital Abu Dhabi. Oil and natural gas production made up about 5.5 percent of Dubai’s $62bn economy in 2007, (Source: UAE Ministry of Economy). The UAE is beginning an atomic-energy programme to diversify supply and compensate for limited amounts of the natural gas needed to fire power plants.

Dubai’s ruler and Vice President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, last year established an energy planning council and an oil affairs department to manage production, sale and export of crude and regulate licensing of related products. The emirate announced earlier this year that it discovered an offshore crude deposit that it plans to evaluate and begin developing as early as next year. The size of the deposit and prospective production levels weren’t disclosed.

Government-run utility Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) is seeking international investors to build a 1,500-megawatt power plant and water desalination facility. DEWA plans to build in six phases a new generation facility located at Hassyan on the border with Abu Dhabi that would generate a total of 9,000 megawatts when completed. The utility, which slowed projects because of lower growth rates, still plans to raise generation capacity by about a third over the next two years to 9,800 megawatts
(Source: Bloomberg)

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