Environmental awareness is on the rise. It isn’t happening overnight, but it is happening, thanks to green-conscious organisations and government bodies reminding everyone to save, recycle and conserve vital resources.
Greater understanding of environmental issues has put a new focus on the role solar energy can play in the UAE, with consumers keen to cash in on the power of sunshine. While the country has invested in utility-scale solar installations for a while – for example, the Shams 1 plant in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region or the Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park on the edge of Dubai – smaller options for domestic applications haven’t always received the attention they deserve.
Now though, things are changing. Building regulations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi mandate energy savings, as well as encouraging and rewarding environmentally thoughtful design. More recently, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority changed the game when it introduced Shams Dubai, part of a new wave of “smart city” initiatives in the city.
Shams Dubai is a net-metering scheme for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. In simple terms, it means homeowners and businesses can connect their solar panels to Dewa’s electricity grid. This offers a massive advantage to anyone with a new or existing solar system, removing the need for battery storage and allowing power to be “credited” to the grid for later use. Dewa bills reflect the net usage – in other words, any power that a homeowner has to buy to supplement their generation is all they pay for.
“It’s a phenomenal change,” says Moataz El Wardani, the founder and chief executive of Shams Energy Solutions. “Now, we have the ability to produce energy and extra can be fed into the grid and pulled back whenever you need it. Residential applications now make a lot of sense, because you don’t have to invest in batteries, which increases your investment.”
El Wardani founded his company a little more than a year ago, and it has been among the first cadre of contractors to pass through Dewa’s installer-certification course. Any householder who wants to connect a solar system to the grid must use a Dewa-approved contractor for the task. Since Shams Dubai became active, El Wardani has seen interest from the local market go beyond initial expectations. Boosted by Dewa’s campaigns, awareness of solar as a practical and cost-effective energy source has grown.
“It is interesting and a revolution in terms of transforming consumers of energy into producers of energy,” he says. “It’s going to be a revolution in the energy sector in our region.”
For homeowners, though, the choice isn’t clear cut. Although solar technology has improved in efficiency at the same time as the cost of PV panels has declined steeply, it’s still a technology that benefits from scale when it comes to getting value for money.
“At the end of the day, what the consumer is looking at is the bottom line,” says El Wardani. “For small residential [customers], it becomes a bit tough, but as consumption goes up for bigger houses, then it starts making more sense. It’s then that it becomes a sellable, bankable product for residential users.”
With a large rental community in the UAE, solar installations offer little direct benefit to landlords, which means much of the current residential demand – El Wardani estimates it at about 30 per cent of his company’s total – is coming from owner-occupiers of larger homes. Some existing solar installations are also being upgraded to connect to the grid, rather than having batteries replaced when they need renewing. El Wardani believes the Dubai market will experience a boost in demand from developers, who may use solar installations to help their communities stand out from the crowd.
“Then it is scaled, and the numbers will make much more sense,” he says. “You are working in one location and have all resources in place, so the numbers are way better.”
The power that can be achieved in a residential setting is in the range of 5 to 15 kilowatt peak, a measure of the output power achieved by a module under full solar radiation. Most manufacturers call it maximum power, since it’s based on measurements made under standard test conditions. The limit on peak power output is usually determined by the space available for panels in residential settings.
“A 10-kilowatt-hour unit would fit on a four-bedroom villa, with an average production of 18,000 kilowatt hours per annum, based on historic data and software simulations,” he says. “In terms of Dubai’s consumption trends, this could be 30 per cent of a household’s annual consumption. This is a significant improvement in terms of your bill and reduction in CO2 emissions.”
While going completely solar is likely to be impractical for most consumers because of space limitations, going green and making smaller carbon footprints may turn out to be one of the biggest influencers in decisions to add a solar element to a household’s energy mix. Consumers are increasingly on the lookout for ways to contribute to a healthier planet – reducing CO2 emissions is a key benefit of solar installations, as the power they generate typically replaces utility-bought power from gas-fired generators.
“People have an interest in actually taking care of the environment. So although sometimes the numbers don’t make sense, people want to do the installation from an environmental point of view,” says El Wardani.
The environmentally conscious consumer could be a stronger force than might be expected in the region. Although clean energy has received a big push in recent years, thanks to new regulations and a growing awareness of the global impact of excessive energy use, some have been deploying clean energy options for much longer.
Enter Suresh Perera. His company, Solair Solar Energy Systems & Components started in the UAE 22 years ago, long before there were regulations encouraging the use of environmentally friendly energy sources. “We believed in the technology long ago and that is why we have been dedicated to doing energy-saving and renewable-energy systems,” he says.
The systems in question are the sometimes-overlooked solar units that generate hot water, rather than power. These can offer a way into solar energy for homeowners who may not have the capacity requirements to get solar electricity generation going on an economic scale. For hot water, rooftop units are connected to the plumbing and use the direct heat from the Sun to heat water, which the system cycles into tanks inside the home. The savings generated through a well-designed solar hot-water system can be significant.
“Solar water heating is much cheaper,” says Perera. “You’re talking a return on investment of two to three years, whereas PV may be five to seven years. A good quality system will last at least 20 to 25 years.”
The addition of heat-recovery systems to the circuit can pull in waste heat energy from other appliances and boosts overall efficiency, helping to make sure there’s hot water available when the Sun isn’t up.
Perera says that it’s important to check the quality and reputation of the installer and their proposed equipment. It’s also essential to ensure the quality and placement of any existing plumbing, because bad plumbing can wipe out the gains from a solar heating system. Insulation should be used to keep heat from hot water in the pipes. Water pipes should also be kept away from any cool-air ducts, otherwise valuable savings could go to waste.
“There are lot of traders who just want to supply some rubbish equipment and then go away,” he says. “Solar is not just about putting up a panel and saying: ‘Yes, I have a system.’ You have to design it properly, and if you do, a design can achieve a 75 per cent energy saving. If you have a 75 per cent contribution, you are talking about a fast recovery [of costs] and a long life for the system.”
Good design will help speed the returns from any solar installation, but since the object of such installations is to save money on conventional energy bought from the grid, it’s important homeowners don’t ignore other easy opportunities for energy savings before buying in to new energy sources. Simple things like making a home airtight with renewed window seals, using low-energy appliances and installing insulation can often have a dramatic effect on a home’s energy consumption. Your neighbours might not notice them as much as a solar system, but you probably will when your power bill arrives.
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