Arab states cannot rely on oil forever

Arab states cannot rely on oil forever

Since the history, much of the modern Middle East and North Africa was built on oil. And, this stuff exports more than other black stuff than any region. For example, almost a quarter of Middle Eastern power comes from oil, compared with 3% from renewable sources.

In the southern desert, Egypt is putting finishing touches to the world’s largest solar farm well known  as Benban that 6m panels which produces 1.5 gigawatts of energy that enough to power over 1m homes.

Reminding the recent collapse in oil prices that it is risky to depend on a single source of revenue, and in the long term the global trend is towards for cleaner energy resources, Middle East has doubled the renewable energy capacity to 40 gigawatts over the past decade and is set to double again by 2024.

With its vast deserts, Non-oil economies were an advantage for the Arab World to take the abundant clean-energy source from the sun.

In the Middle East, oil producers are catching up as a big project in Abu Dhabi (UAE), were recently received the world’s lowest tariff bid for solar power. Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar too. For the resume, The whole Middle East generates 9 gigawatts of solar power, an increase from a paltry 91 megawatts decade ago, and investment in the field has increased 12-fold a decade ago.

The analyst Optimists of this growing competitiveness trend will continue year-by-year, by seeking; solar farms are cheaper, faster, and safer to build and maintain than oil and gas plants. This new solar plant will generate electricity at roughly around two-thirds the cost of gas and oil, (even at today’s low prices.

By this hope, many investors though still have cause to hesitate because of conflict in neighboring countries. On the other hand, there is also risk. For example, Saudi Arabia might prefer to burn more oil for energy and declining revenues. This problem could force oil-producing states to suspend this solar power project.

“Why spend money taking fuel out of the ground and processing it rather than relying on God-given free as sun and wind.” says Paddy Padmanathan.