ARAB NEWS: The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) is in a good position to develop green hydrogen, leveraging its capabilities to produce cost-efficient power, its CEO Jasim Husain Thabet said.
“The key component of becoming competitive in the green hydrogen market is access or capabilities in producing cost efficient power – renewable power and water – which we have,” the TAQA chief said, referring to the company’s major projects that include building the largest single-site solar power plant in the world.
“We have all the right ingredients to make green hydrogen feasible.”
The company also announced the Taweela RO, which it claims be the world’s largest reverse osmosis water desalination plant with a capacity of 200 million imperial gallons per day.
These projects are key to making “commercially viable” green hydrogen, which has been increasingly popular in the global energy transition scene.
“We see green hydrogen as an important market, and it really fits with our strategy where we said we want to move to become a low carbon power and water champion,” Thabet said.
Just recently, TAQA signed agreements with the Abu Dhabi Ports Authority and Emirates Steel. The first agreement will see TAQA build a green hydrogen power plant to produce green ammonia, which will be used as fuel for shipping.
Last week, the company announced it will start exploring the feasibility of providing green hydrogen from solar power, helping Emirates Steel in manufacturing “green steel.”
These projects are in parallel with TAQA’s long-term sustainability strategy, where it plans to increase the share of renewable energy – particularly solar photovoltaic (PV) – to its energy mix, from a current 8 percent to 30 percent by 2030.
Its Al Dhafra solar power plant project, announced late last year, vastly contributes to this goal, CEO Jasim Husain Thabet told Arab News, where the plant is expected to have a capacity of 2 gigawatts, powering around 160,000 homes once completed.
TAQA hopes to deliver these projects while maintaining impressive levels of profitability. The company recently announced a 42 percent year-on-year increase in net income in the first half of 2021.
“Against the backdrop of favorable market conditions, we continue to adopt a prudent financial policy, which saw us fully repay our corporate credit facilities this quarter and increase available liquidity,” Thabet said.
TAQA is also “actively pursuing international projects,” particularly targeting the Gulf.
Thabet said the company is participating in several tenders in Saudi Arabia, where it currently owns a stake at the Jubail Power Plant.
