Bahrain to have solar panels on new buildings

Bahrain is drafting a new clean energy policy under which all new buildings in the kingdom will have to be designed with solar energy panels in mind, according to a senior government official. The policy is in line with the renewable energy action plan of the sustainable energy unit (SEU), a government entity set up in co-operation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which aims at meeting five per cent of Bahrain’s total energy consumption needs through renewables by 2025. The target will be later increased to 10pc by 2035, stated Dr Khalid Burashid, senior technical advisor at SEU, which has been charged with encouraging investment in renewable energies like solar energy. Dr Burashid was speaking on the sidelines of the two-day International Conference on Green Cities, Sustainable Buildings and Renewable Energy, organised by Kingdom University. It was held under the patronage of Electricity and Water Affairs Minister Dr Abdulhussain Mirza at ART Rotana Hotel, Amwaj Islands in co-operation with the International Renewable Energy Network. "The policy will require real estate developers to integrate renewable energy technologies into the designs of new buildings," he stated. In a bid to popularise the production of solar energy for domestic purposes, solar panels have been installed at a house in a government housing project on an experimental basis. Each panel would be made up of 24 to 28 cells and each cell will be capable of storing 250-300 watts with a total capacity of 7,000 watts. The estimated solar power production is expected to be 12,500 kilowatts per hour every year said the official. Amid growing focus on solar projects across the globe, Dr Abdulhussain Mirza had recently announced that the government had approved plans to build a 100MW solar power station as a public private partnership project. The project will provide for 2.5 per cent of the country’s electricity needs and the national goal is to increase energy efficiency by 6 per cent by 2025, stated the minister recently in his keynote address at the Solar Utilities Network (SUN) Forum held alongside the Gulf Industry Fair 2018 at Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre last week. The tendering process will begin soon and the project will be ready for operations by the end of 2019,