About 1,000 solar power jobs will be created in the UAE during the next two years as employment in the renewables sector rises globally.
A report released yesterday by the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) said that worldwide renewable energy employment grew 18 per cent last year compared with 2013.
This trend is set to continue in the UAE, particularly for the country's solar power sector, with 1,000 jobs expected to be added, according to the Middle East Solar Industry Association (Mesia), an industry group based in the UAE. Its founder and president, Vahid Fotuhi, said that the growth will come from both large projects, such as the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai, and the installation of smaller rooftop solar applications.
“Many jobs will be created through the residential and commercial rooftop solar schemes such as Shams Dubai, which will create jobs in manufacturing, engineering, procurement, construction, operations, financing and development,” he said.
Shams Dubai is an initiative from Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), which has issued a set of regulations for the generation of solar energy in buildings as well as connection to the grid as part of plans to encourage more solar installations in the emirate.
Larger projects will also offer new employment opportunities.
Paddy Padmanathan, the chief executive of Saudi Arabia’s Acwa, which has been awarded 200 megawatts worth of work in Dewa’s Mohammed bin Rashid photovoltaic (PV) park, said that the full project, excluding construction, could create as many as 300 jobs, both directly and indirectly.
Mr Padmanathan said that the project would also lead to new UAE jobs in the solar energy supply chain.
The Irena report said that solar PV is the largest global renewables employer, ahead of biofuels, wind, small hydropower and geothermal energy, making up almost a third, or 2.5 million, of the 7.7 million global renewable energy jobs.
“If the renewable energy targets that have been announced by GCC countries by 2030 are met, 120,000 jobs annually could be created [in the region],” said Rabia Ferroukhi, the deputy director of knowledge, policy and finance at Irena.
“PV creates twice as many jobs as the oil and gas and coal industry.”
This is because conventional energy production is a mature industry with fewer new developments than in the infant PV market.
Qmega, a UAE-based company that designs and manufactures PV products, will grow its staff by 25 per cent in the next three months, specifically in sales.
“It’s not the manufacturing capacity that’s grown – it’s the value chain,” said the chief executive, Omer Ghani. With the firm’s sales growing, the sales team will also have to grow, he explained.
“Now in Dubai, there are companies – from government to the private sector – calling me because they need to expand their production line and can’t get extra power from [Dewa] to meet their time scale,” he said.
The company also offers solar PV rentals.
“The market is moving from infancy to maturity,” Mr Ghani said.
Ms Ferroukhi said that any industry in the beginning creates a large number of jobs, but that usually changes once the industry matures.
She said that the rate of growth of the renewable energy job market will likely decrease, although it is uncertain by how much and when.
“Right now we’re reaping the benefits of a young industry, and it takes years and years, if not decades, [to reach maturity],” she said.
lgraves@thenational.ae
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