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United Arab Emirates: 5 energy policy briefs

The energy policies moving United Arab Emirates’s power markets, one brief each: the problem, the mechanism, the market effect, who gains and who pays, where it stands on the path to binding law, and the official text.

EWEC single-buyer rounds · Al Dhafra, Al Ajban, Khazna, Zarraf and the 1 GW round-the-clock solar-plus-storage project

United Arab Emirates · Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) · decision · 2025

Where it stands: Multiple awards signed and financed: Khazna and Al Dhafra thermal at financial close, the 5.2 GW round-the-clock project under construction, Taweelah C awarded and Al Nouf 1 and Zarraf in evaluation

As Abu Dhabi's sole procurer, EWEC has awarded a series of gigawatt-scale solar projects at record-low tariffs and, in October 2025, broke ground with Masdar on the world's first gigascale round-the-clock renewable project: a 5.2 GW solar plant paired with a 19 GWh battery system designed to deliver 1 GW of baseload renewable power continuously, backed by more than AED 22 billion of investment and targeted at the emirate's artificial-intelligence and data-centre load.

The problem

Abu Dhabi's clean target requires 60 percent of electricity production to come from clean sources by 2035, but solar without storage delivers energy in the middle of the day while the emirate's load peaks in the evening and its fastest-growing new customers, data centres serving artificial-intelligence workloads, need firm power every hour of every day. Adding solar alone therefore hits a ceiling: each additional gigawatt is worth less than the last, curtailment rises, and the residual evening ramp still has to be met by gas. At the same time the single-buyer model concentrates the risk of getting the volume wrong in one entity, so EWEC has had to procure three different things in parallel - cheap bulk solar energy, firm dispatchable capacity to cover the ramp, and now firm renewable capacity - while keeping tariffs low enough that the DoE will approve the pass-through.

What it does

EWEC procures through international tenders: an expression of interest, a qualification stage, a request for proposals, a preferred bidder and a power purchase agreement under which EWEC pays only for net electrical energy supplied. The solar sequence runs Noor Abu Dhabi (about 1 GW AC, commercial operation 2019), Al Dhafra (2 GW, bid in April 2020 at a then world-record levelised tariff of AED 4.97 fils per kWh, or US 1.35 cents per kWh, inaugurated November 2023, refinanced with a US$870.75 million green bond in January 2026), Al Ajban 1.5 GW (AC) awarded to EDF Renewables, KOWEPO and Masdar with the PPA signed on 26 April 2024 and financial close in September 2024, Khazna 1.5 GW (AC) awarded to ENGIE with Masdar on 10 October 2025 with financial close on 19 January 2026, and Zarraf 1.5 GW, for which the RFP was issued on 9 January 2025 to 16 qualified bidders out of 20 that filed expressions of interest in October 2024. In December 2024 EWEC secured about 75 square kilometres across four new sites (Al Faya, Al Khazna, Al Zarraf and Sila) for 4.5 GW of solar and up to 140 MW of wind. On 24 October 2025 EWEC and Masdar broke ground on the round-the-clock project: 5.2 GW of solar PV integrated with a 19 GWh battery energy storage system delivering 1 GW of baseload renewable power, with virtual power plant, grid-forming and black-start capability and AI-enhanced dispatch, more than AED 22 billion of capital, about 5.7 million tonnes of avoided CO2 a year and operation targeted for 2027. On the firm side, EWEC awarded the 2.6 GW Taweelah C CCGT on 3 June 2026 to TAQA with Aljomaih and Sembcorp under a PPA running to 2050, and received four proposals on 30 March 2026 for Al Nouf 1, a 3.3 GW carbon-capture-ready CCGT; it has also tendered a 400 MW battery system and the 140 MW Al Sila wind project.

Market effect

EWEC's procurement is the price-setting mechanism for the whole emirate, and the two numbers that matter are the solar tariff and the new baseload benchmark. Al Dhafra's 1.35 US cents per kWh set the global floor and made Abu Dhabi solar cheaper than the fuel cost of the gas plants it displaces, which is why more than 60 percent of instantaneous demand has already been supplied from renewable and clean sources at times (5.5 GW of an 8.6 GW load as early as December 2022). The round-the-clock project changes the product: a 5.2 GW array with 19 GWh of storage sold as 1 GW of continuous renewable output is the first time gigascale firm renewable energy has been priced at all, and it gives data-centre developers a contractable alternative to gas. The implication for thermal is not that gas disappears but that it is repriced as flexibility: Taweelah C and Al Nouf 1 are explicitly justified as transitional despatchable capacity to manage intermittency, sized at 2.6 GW and up to 3.3 GW, with Taweelah C claiming one of the region's lowest capital costs per kilowatt-hour and lowest levelised cost. EWEC now expects solar to exceed 30 GW by 2035. For contractors, the pipeline is the most predictable multi-gigawatt annual solar and storage flow in the world outside China and India; for lenders, the EWEC PPA with an ADQ-owned counterparty and energy-only payment structure has become a regional template.

Key numbers

Round-the-clock project
5.2 GW solar PV plus 19 GWh battery storage delivering 1 GW of baseload renewable power; more than AED 22 billion; about 5.7 Mt CO2 avoided a year; operational by 2027
Record solar tariff
Al Dhafra 2 GW at AED 4.97 fils per kWh (US 1.35 cents per kWh), bid April 2020
Gigawatt-scale solar awards
Al Ajban 1.5 GW (PPA 26 April 2024), Khazna 1.5 GW (PPA 10 October 2025, financial close 19 January 2026), Zarraf 1.5 GW (RFP 9 January 2025)
New firm capacity
Taweelah C 2.6 GW CCGT awarded 3 June 2026 with a PPA to 2050; Al Nouf 1 up to 3.3 GW carbon-capture-ready, four proposals received 30 March 2026
Build path
At least 10 GW of solar by 2030, more than 18 GW by 2035 and an expectation of exceeding 30 GW of solar PV by 2035

Who gains and who pays

  • Masdar, TAQA, ENGIE, EDF Renewables, KOWEPO, Sembcorp, Aljomaih (gains): Long-term PPAs with an ADQ-owned single buyer across solar, storage and CCGT.
  • Data-centre and AI infrastructure operators (gains): Firm round-the-clock renewable supply becomes contractable for the first time.
  • Battery and grid-forming inverter suppliers (gains): A 19 GWh single order plus a separate 400 MW battery tender.
  • Existing gas-fired plants (costs): Energy value erodes as solar and storage cover more hours; role shifts to flexibility and reserve.
  • EWEC and Abu Dhabi ratepayers (obligation): Long-dated take-or-supply obligations, including a Taweelah C PPA running to 2050.
  • Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi and land authorities (mixed): Must allocate and safeguard tens of square kilometres of desert for each gigawatt.

Implementation

Each project moves from expression of interest to RFP in a few months, to preferred bidder and PPA in roughly 12 to 18 months, and to commercial operation two to four years later, with financial close typically within one or two quarters of PPA signature: Al Ajban closed in September 2024 after an April 2024 award, Khazna closed on 19 January 2026 after an October 2025 award, and the 1 GW Al Dhafra thermal project closed on 30 December 2025. The four sites secured in December 2024 (Al Faya, Al Khazna, Al Zarraf and Sila) are the land bank for the next rounds, allocated in coordination with the DoE, the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, the Department of Municipalities and Transport, ADNOC, the Department of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Defence. EWEC also took over the load despatch function from TRANSCO, so it now plans, procures and despatches. The near-term gates are the Zarraf award, the Al Nouf 1 award after the March 2026 proposals, the 400 MW battery and 140 MW Al Sila wind awards, and delivery of the round-the-clock project against its 2027 operating target.

Concerns

  • Concentration of counterparty risk in a single buyer with very long-dated obligations
  • Delivering 19 GWh of storage on a 2027 timeline is an execution risk with no precedent at this scale
  • Record-low tariffs leave little headroom for equipment cost or interest-rate shocks
  • New CCGT capacity to 2050 locks in gas even as the clean share rises
  • Land, transmission and environmental approvals must keep pace with 1.5 GW-per-round procurement
  • Data-centre demand growth could outrun even this pipeline between tender cycles

Dates to watch

  • 2027: Target operation of the 5.2 GW solar plus 19 GWh storage round-the-clock project
  • 2030: At least 10 GW of solar in operation and more than 50 percent of Abu Dhabi's energy from renewable and clean sources
  • 2035: More than 18 GW of solar, with EWEC expecting to exceed 30 GW, against the 60 percent clean target

Sources

Checked against sources on .

Barakah nuclear plant · four APR1400 units, 5,560 MW and about a quarter of UAE electricity

United Arab Emirates · Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) and Emirates Nuclear Energy Company (ENEC) · decision · 2024

Where it stands: All four units licensed and in commercial operation, supplying about a quarter of national electricity under a long-term PPA with EWEC

FANR issued the operating licence for Barakah in February 2020 and the four Korean-designed APR1400 units entered commercial operation between April 2021 and 5 September 2024, giving the UAE 5,560 MW of nuclear capacity that supplies roughly 25 percent of national electricity and about 40 TWh of carbon-free output a year, and that has reshaped the despatch of the Abu Dhabi system.

The problem

The UAE decided in 2008 to build nuclear capacity because its gas position was deteriorating: domestic production is sour and expensive to process, the country imports about 2 billion standard cubic feet a day from Qatar through the Dolphin pipeline, and power and desalination demand was compounding at nearly 5 percent a year. Renewables alone could not solve it, because solar produces nothing at the evening peak and nothing in the humid summer nights when desalination and cooling load is highest. Nuclear offered firm, carbon-free, fuel-secure baseload at a scale nothing else could match, but the UAE had no nuclear infrastructure, no regulator, no trained workforce and no legal framework, and it had committed publicly to forgo domestic enrichment and reprocessing, which meant the entire programme had to be built on imported technology and fuel under international scrutiny.

What it does

The UAE created the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation as an independent regulator and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Company, established by decree in December 2009, as owner and developer, and contracted a Korea Electric Power Corporation-led team to build four APR1400 pressurised water reactors at Barakah in the Al Dhafra region. ENEC submitted the operating licence application for Units 1 and 2 to FANR in 2015 and a separate application for Units 3 and 4 in 2017. FANR then licensed the units one at a time: February 2020 for Unit 1, issued to the operating subsidiary then named Nawah Energy Company and since renamed ENEC Operations, followed by March 2021 for Unit 2, June 2022 for Unit 3 and November 2023 for Unit 4, each licence authorising commissioning and operation for 60 years. Fuel load followed each licence within weeks, in March 2020, March 2021, June 2022 and December 2023 respectively. Commercial operation, as recorded by the offtaker EWEC, began in April 2021 for Unit 1, March 2022 for Unit 2 and February 2023 for Unit 3; ENEC announced Unit 4's entry into commercial operation on 5 September 2024, which completed the plant and made Barakah the first multi-unit nuclear plant in the Arab world to run its full fleet. Total installed nuclear capacity is 5,560 MW. Electricity is sold under a long-term power purchase agreement to EWEC, which despatches Barakah as must-run baseload and counts it toward the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy's clean-energy target; the nuclear attribute is issued as clean energy certificates by the DoE with EWEC as single registrant, so corporates can buy verified nuclear attributes alongside solar. ENEC has since built a commercial and consulting arm and is exploring further capacity and international deployment.

Market effect

Barakah is the largest single change to UAE despatch in the country's history. At 5,560 MW of must-run output on a system whose 2026 record peak was 33,714 MW and whose 2025 generation was about 192.7 TWh, nuclear alone supplies roughly a quarter of national electricity and about 40 TWh a year, and together with solar it is why clean sources reached 32.4 percent of generation in 2025 and why EWEC recorded more than 60 percent of instantaneous demand met from renewable and clean sources as early as December 2022. For gas plants the effect is a permanent loss of baseload duty: the combined-cycle fleet has moved up the merit order into mid-merit and evening-ramp roles, which is exactly the justification EWEC gives for procuring Taweelah C and Al Nouf 1 as flexible rather than baseload capacity. For the gas balance, displacing tens of terawatt-hours of gas-fired generation frees pipeline and LNG volumes for export or for petrochemicals and reduces exposure to the Dolphin import. The residual-load consequence is the one traders should model: nuclear at the bottom and solar in the middle of the day leave a narrow, steep evening window where all the price formation now happens, which is the economic basis for the 19 GWh battery project and for the 400 MW storage tender.

Key numbers

Installed nuclear capacity
5,560 MW across four APR1400 units at Barakah
Share of national electricity
About 25 percent of UAE demand, nearly 40 TWh of carbon-free output a year
Operating licences
FANR licences per unit: February 2020, March 2021, June 2022 and November 2023, each for 60 years of operation
Commercial operation
Unit 1 April 2021, Unit 2 March 2022, Unit 3 February 2023, Unit 4 5 September 2024
Carbon and certificates
22.4 million tonnes of CO2 avoided a year; Barakah powers 85 percent of the clean energy certificates EWEC manages
System context
2025 UAE generation about 192.7 TWh with 32.4 percent clean; record peak 33,714 MW on 4 August 2026

Who gains and who pays

  • ENEC and Nawah Energy Company (obligation): Hold the FANR operating licence and the long-term supply obligation to EWEC.
  • EWEC and Abu Dhabi consumers (gains): About 40 TWh a year of firm carbon-free output under a long-term PPA.
  • Gas-fired generators (costs): Baseload duty permanently displaced; running hours concentrated in the evening ramp.
  • FANR (obligation): Must license, inspect and regulate four operating reactors and any future units.
  • Corporate buyers of clean energy certificates (gains): Nuclear attributes are issued and auctioned alongside solar in Abu Dhabi.
  • Storage and flexible capacity providers (gains): A narrower, steeper residual-load window raises the value of fast flexibility.

Implementation

Operation runs under FANR licence conditions with periodic inspection, refuelling outages roughly every 18 months per unit and an emergency preparedness regime coordinated with federal and Abu Dhabi authorities. Commercially, output flows to EWEC under the long-term power purchase agreement and is despatched as baseload, with the clean attribute separated into DoE-issued certificates. The forward questions are about extension rather than construction: ENEC has signalled interest in additional capacity and in exporting its delivery model through ENEC Consulting, and the UAE's spent fuel and waste strategy, which currently relies on on-site storage, will need a long-term answer. For a market participant the practical monitoring points are FANR licence actions and outage schedules, because a single APR1400 unit out of service removes about 1,400 MW of must-run supply and shifts several hundred megawatt-hours per hour onto the gas fleet at the evening peak.

Concerns

  • Loss of a single 1,400 MW unit is a large contingency for a system of this size
  • Long-term spent fuel and high-level waste disposition is not yet settled
  • Fuel supply and enrichment services are entirely imported by policy choice
  • Must-run baseload plus midday solar compresses the window in which flexible plant can earn
  • Regulatory and operating capability rests on a young domestic workforce
  • Any further units would face a very different cost and financing environment than the original contract

Dates to watch

  • 2027: Refuelling outage cycle across the four units and any FANR licence condition changes
  • 2030: UAE Energy Strategy milestone in which nuclear is counted as roughly 20 percent of the clean share

Sources

Checked against sources on .

Dubai's IPP programme · Law 6/2011, the MBR Solar Park phases and Hatta pumped storage

United Arab Emirates · Ruler of Dubai, Dubai Supreme Council of Energy and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) · statute · 2023

Where it stands: Law 6 of 2011 in force and used for every phase; solar park phases, Hatta pumped storage and Warsan waste-to-energy operating or commissioning in stages

Dubai runs the opposite model to Abu Dhabi: DEWA is utility, procurer and network owner under the Supreme Council of Energy, and since Law No. 6 of 2011 opened generation to private participation it has used the independent producer structure to build the 3,860 MW Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in seven phases, alongside the 250 MW Hatta pumped-storage plant and the Warsan waste-to-energy facility, toward a Dubai Clean Energy Strategy target of 100 percent clean production capacity by 2050.

The problem

Dubai has no oil to speak of, imports most of its gas, and has the fastest-growing urban load in the Gulf outside Riyadh. Before 2011 DEWA built and owned everything itself, which meant every megawatt sat on the emirate's balance sheet at a time when Dubai was rebuilding its credit after the 2009 debt crisis. It also meant no external price discovery: nobody knew what Dubai's generation actually cost. The Supreme Council of Energy, created in 2009 to set energy policy for the emirate, concluded that private capital and competitive tension were needed both to finance capacity and to benchmark cost, but that DEWA should stay the single buyer and the network owner so that security of supply and tariffs remained under emirate control. The other problem was shape: a desert solar build creates a midday surplus, and Dubai's evening peak and its desalination load needed storage and firm capacity that solar alone cannot provide.

What it does

Law No. (6) of 2011 Regulating the Participation of the Private Sector in Electricity and Water Production in the Emirate of Dubai created the legal route for independent power producers to build generation and sell to DEWA under long-term power purchase agreements. Its structure is worth reading precisely. Article 3 applies the law to all regulated activities anywhere in the emirate, free zones and special development areas included. Article 5(a) forbids any public or private entity from conducting a regulated activity without a licence from the Electricity and Water Sector Regulation and Control Office, the body set up by Executive Council Resolution No. 2 of 2010, while article 5(b) exempts DEWA itself on the ground that it is the only entity authorised to carry out electricity and water production projects under its founding Decree No. 1 of 1992. Article 4 gives that Office the power to set technical, health, environmental and safety standards, to receive and decide licence and exemption applications with the approval of the Supreme Energy Council, and to set the rules for operating the transmission system. Article 6 lets the Council, on DEWA's recommendation, determine which activities and facilities a licensed entity may run; article 7 lets DEWA establish project companies alone or with third parties, expressly including parties that do not hold UAE nationality; article 8 has the partner in a project company selected on DEWA's recommendation under rules approved by the Council; and article 9 lets DEWA grant a project company usufruct or other real rights over designated land for up to ninety-nine years. The majority stake DEWA usually keeps in each project company is its own commercial practice rather than a requirement of the law. DEWA has used that structure to develop the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, launched in 2012 and the largest single-site solar park in the world on the independent producer model, in seven phases: 10 MW of photovoltaic capacity in 2013, 200 MW in 2017, 800 MW in 2020, a 950 MW fourth phase in 2023 combining 700 MW of concentrated solar power with 250 MW of photovoltaic, a 900 MW fifth phase also in 2023, an 1,800 MW sixth phase in 2026 and a seventh phase of 2,000 MW of photovoltaic plus a 1,400 MW battery system with six hours of storage, tendered for delivery between 2027 and 2029. The park's capacity has reached 3,860 MW and DEWA now expects it to exceed 8,000 MW by 2030 against an original plan of 5,000 MW, lifting clean sources past 21.5 percent of DEWA's total capacity today and to 36 percent by 2030 against an original plan of 25 percent, and avoiding more than 8.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The fourth phase is the technical outlier: its 700 MW concentrated solar plant holds Guinness records for the largest single-site CSP capacity, the tallest CSP tower at 263.126 metres and the largest thermal storage at 5,907 megawatt-hours, and it has run 39 days without interruption. The same structure carries the 250 MW Hatta pumped-storage hydropower plant, the emirate's flexibility asset, and the Warsan waste-to-energy plant of about 200 MW, which the Supreme Council of Energy reported in February 2026 had processed more than 4.5 million tonnes of waste and diverted 62 percent from landfill, with a second expansion phase to be launched during 2026. Policy direction comes from the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, which sets the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy and its 2050 goal of an entirely clean power capacity mix, runs the Demand Side Management Strategy and reviews annual clean-energy performance; the Regulatory and Supervisory Bureau licenses distributed solar under the Shams Dubai net-metering scheme. Tariffs and major programme decisions are approved by Executive Council resolution rather than by an independent regulator.

Market effect

Dubai's tenders, alongside Abu Dhabi's, are what drove Gulf solar tariffs from the high double digits per MWh to the low teens over a decade, and because DEWA retains a majority equity stake the emirate captures most of the upside while the international partner carries construction and performance risk. For developers that means Dubai is a minority-equity market: the commercial return comes from the EPC, the operations and maintenance contract and a minority carry rather than from control. The Hatta pumped-storage plant is the single most important asset for the shape of Dubai's market, because 250 MW of storage with a long discharge duration is what allows the solar park's midday output to be shifted into the evening peak and is the reason Dubai has not needed to procure as much peaking gas as its load growth would otherwise imply; nationally it is the UAE's only 250 MW of pumped storage. The waste-to-energy plant supplies about 200 MW of firm, must-run output. For corporate buyers, Dubai's route to clean energy is Shams Dubai rooftop net metering and DEWA's own green tariff products rather than the certificate auctions used in Abu Dhabi, which is a material difference for a multi-emirate industrial customer designing a procurement strategy.

Key numbers

Enabling law
Dubai Law No. (6) of 2011: article 5 requires a licence from the regulation and control office but exempts DEWA; article 7 lets DEWA form project companies with non-UAE partners; article 9 allows land rights for up to 99 years
Solar park phases
10 MW 2013, 200 MW 2017, 800 MW 2020, 950 MW 2023 (700 MW CSP + 250 MW PV), 900 MW 2023, 1,800 MW 2026, and 2,000 MW PV with 1,400 MW of six-hour storage for 2027-2029
Solar park scale
3,860 MW today, more than 8,000 MW by 2030 against an original plan of 5,000 MW; over 8.5 million tonnes of CO2 avoided a year
DEWA clean share
Above 21.5 percent of DEWA capacity now, 36 percent by 2030 against an original plan of 25 percent, and 100 percent of production capacity by 2050
Flexibility assets in the national mix
250 MW of pumped-storage hydropower at Hatta and about 200 MW of waste-to-energy, the UAE's entire capacity in both categories
Policy body
Dubai Supreme Council of Energy (Law 19 of 2009), which sets the Clean Energy Strategy and the Demand Side Management Strategy
National solar fleet
6,449 MW of solar installed across the UAE, of which the MBR Solar Park is the Dubai share

Who gains and who pays

  • International solar developers and EPC contractors (gains): Repeat gigawatt-scale tenders, though usually as minority partners to DEWA.
  • DEWA (mixed): Keeps control and majority equity but carries offtake and network obligations for every phase.
  • Dubai ratepayers (gains): Competitive tariffs and a diversified mix reduce exposure to imported gas.
  • Gas-fired plants at Jebel Ali (costs): Displaced in daylight hours and increasingly relegated to evening and reserve duty.
  • Rooftop solar installers and commercial self-generators (gains): Shams Dubai net metering licensed by the Regulatory and Supervisory Bureau.
  • Independent producers seeking control (costs): DEWA's majority-stake model caps the equity share available to third parties.

Implementation

Each solar park phase runs as a separate independent power producer tender: DEWA issues an expression of interest and request for proposals, shortlists, selects on levelised tariff, forms a project company in which it holds the majority and the winning consortium the balance, signs a power purchase agreement and reaches financial close, with commissioning staged in tranches so that the first hundreds of megawatts energise ahead of full phase completion. DEWA publishes phase capacities and commissioning years on the solar park page but keeps consortium names and levelised tariffs in the individual award announcements, and the Supreme Council of Energy reviews clean-energy progress annually, most recently at its 92nd meeting on 15 February 2026. Anyone pricing a Dubai tender should take the tariff history from those award releases rather than from the programme page.

Concerns

  • DEWA is utility, single buyer and network owner, with no independent economic regulator
  • Majority-stake structure limits third-party equity returns and control
  • Tariff and programme decisions are Executive Council resolutions with no public process
  • Concentration of the emirate's flexibility in a single 250 MW pumped-storage asset
  • Concentrated solar power phases carry higher technology and performance risk than PV
  • Phase-level data is published selectively, which complicates independent diligence

Dates to watch

  • 2026: Sixth phase of the solar park, 1,800 MW, and the launch of the Warsan waste-to-energy expansion
  • 2027: Seventh phase begins delivery, 2,000 MW of solar with a 1,400 MW six-hour battery system, through 2029
  • 2030: Solar park above 8,000 MW and clean sources at 36 percent of DEWA capacity
  • 2050: Dubai Clean Energy Strategy target of a fully clean power capacity mix

Sources

Checked against sources on .

Federal Decree-Law 14/2023 on renewable grid connection · and the updated Energy Strategy 2050

United Arab Emirates · President of the UAE (Federal Decree-Law) and the UAE Cabinet · statute · 2023

Where it stands: Decree-law issued and published; Cabinet resolutions, ministerial standards and emirate-level connection codes are bringing it into operation alongside the updated Energy Strategy 2050

In 2023 the UAE put a federal legal framework around connecting renewable and clean-energy plants to the grid and, in the same year, updated the Energy Strategy 2050 to target roughly 30 to 35 percent clean generation by 2030-31, more than 28 GW of clean capacity and AED 150 to 200 billion of investment, turning what had been seven separate emirate programmes into a national build-out with a common connection right.

The problem

Electricity in the UAE is an emirate competence. Abu Dhabi runs a single-buyer model through the Department of Energy and EWEC, Dubai runs an integrated utility under DEWA, Sharjah has SEWA and the northern emirates are served by the federal Etihad Water and Electricity, each with its own licensing, tariffs and connection practice. That worked while everything was a large state-procured plant, but it did not work for the things the transition needs: a developer, a corporate self-generator or a distributed solar owner had no federal right to connect, no common technical standard and no predictable process, and the differences between emirates fragmented a market of only about 50 GW of installed capacity. At the same time the original 2017 Energy Strategy 2050 targets had been overtaken by events. Demand grew by roughly 4.8 percent a year between 2018 and 2025 to 174,524 GWh, the national peak set a record of 33,714 MW on 4 August 2026, and data-centre and artificial-intelligence load was arriving faster than the old plan assumed, so the clean-energy trajectory had to be raised and the connection rules federalised.

What it does

Federal Decree-Law No. 14 of 2023 establishes a federal framework for connecting renewable and clean-energy production plants to the electricity grid: it defines the categories of plant covered, obliges the relevant local authorities and network operators to provide connection on published terms, and gives the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and the Cabinet the power to issue executive regulations, technical standards and licensing conditions that apply across the emirates while leaving tariff-setting and procurement with each emirate. It sits alongside Federal Decree-Law No. 11 of 2024 on climate change, which introduces sector emission targets by Cabinet resolution, and alongside the updated UAE Energy Strategy 2050. The updated strategy raises clean-energy installed capacity from 14.2 GW to more than 28 GW by 2031, targets a 35 percent clean share of generation by 2031 (and around 30 percent of generation from clean sources by 2030), commits AED 150 to 200 billion of investment through 2030-31, targets a grid emissions factor near 0.27 kg CO2 per kWh by 2030, aims to improve consumption efficiency by 42 to 45 percent against 2019 levels and to create 50,000 green jobs by 2031, and restates net zero for the electricity and water sectors by 2050. The federal layer is completed physically by the Emirates National Grid, which now interconnects Etihad Water and Electricity, the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy and EWEC, DEWA and SEWA under round-the-clock monitoring by the Emirates Monitoring Centre, and by the live interconnection to the GCC Interconnection Authority network.

Market effect

The clean share is already ahead of where the old strategy expected it to be: in 2025 the UAE generated about 192.7 TWh, of which clean sources supplied 32.4 percent, or more than 62.4 TWh. Installed capacity is around 50 GW with about 26 percent non-thermal, comprising 5,560 MW of nuclear, 6,449 MW of solar, 250 MW of pumped-storage hydro, 200 MW of waste-to-energy and 110 MW of wind. For a developer the decree-law matters because it converts connection from a negotiation with an emirate utility into a legal entitlement with a federal standard behind it, which is what makes corporate power purchase agreements, behind-the-meter solar and third-party-owned distributed generation financeable outside Abu Dhabi's single-buyer procurement. For traders, the important structural fact is that the Emirates National Grid plus the live GCCIA link turn seven utility balancing areas into one operational system: reserve is shared, each utility carries less installed reserve margin than it would alone, and commercial transfers between authorities are possible, with EWEC already exporting into the Northern Emirates. The strategy targets set the procurement volumes that EWEC and DEWA then tender, so the 28 GW clean-capacity number is the best single predictor of tender flow for the rest of the decade.

Key numbers

Clean capacity target
From 14.2 GW to more than 28 GW by 2031; 35 percent clean generation by 2031
Investment
AED 150 to 200 billion through 2030-31; 50,000 green jobs by 2031
Where the system is now
2025 generation about 192.7 TWh with 32.4 percent (more than 62.4 TWh) from clean sources
Installed capacity and mix
About 50 GW installed, about 26 percent non-thermal: 5,560 MW nuclear, 6,449 MW solar, 250 MW pumped storage, 200 MW waste-to-energy, 110 MW wind
Demand
174,524 GWh consumed in 2025, growing about 4.8 percent a year since 2018; record peak 33,714 MW on 4 August 2026

Who gains and who pays

  • Renewable and clean-energy developers (gains): A federal connection framework and a published national build-out target across all seven emirates.
  • Emirate utilities and network operators (DEWA, SEWA, Etihad WE, TRANSCO) (obligation): Must connect qualifying plants on published terms and to federal technical standards.
  • Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure (obligation): Issues executive regulations, standards and reporting under the decree-law and the climate law.
  • Corporate offtakers and data-centre operators (gains): A clearer route to contracted clean supply as AI and data-centre load grows.
  • Gas-fired generators (costs): A rising clean share and an efficiency target compress thermal running hours.
  • GCC neighbours via the GCCIA link (mixed): Shared reserve and commercial exchange, but competition for the same trading value.

Implementation

The decree-law takes effect through Cabinet resolutions and Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure decisions that set the technical connection standards, licensing conditions and reporting duties, and through each emirate authority aligning its own connection code, so the practical date that matters for a project is when the local authority publishes conforming connection terms rather than the date of the decree itself. The Energy Strategy 2050 targets are implemented not by regulation but by procurement: EWEC's Statement of Future Capacity Requirements and its tender programme in Abu Dhabi, DEWA's IPP and IWPP rounds in Dubai, and Etihad Water and Electricity and SEWA in the northern emirates and Sharjah. Federal Decree-Law 11 of 2024 on climate change adds a reporting and sector-target overlay from 2025 onward, with the sector emission targets themselves to be set by Cabinet resolution. Watch the Ministry's executive regulations and the emirate connection codes rather than the strategy announcements, because that is where a developer's rights become enforceable.

Concerns

  • Electricity remains an emirate competence, so federal rules bite only as each authority aligns
  • Executive regulations and technical standards under the decree-law are not all published
  • Demand growth of nearly 5 percent a year, now amplified by data centres, can outrun the clean build
  • Tariffs and procurement stay emirate-level, so there is no national price signal
  • No wholesale market, so clean-energy value is captured through single-buyer contracts and certificates
  • GCCIA trading is limited by administrative arrangements rather than by transfer capability

Dates to watch

  • 2030: Around 30 percent of generation from clean sources and a grid factor near 0.27 kg CO2 per kWh
  • 2031: More than 28 GW of clean capacity, 35 percent clean generation and 50,000 green jobs
  • 2050: Net zero for the electricity and water sectors

Sources

Checked against sources on .

Abu Dhabi Law 11/2018 · Department of Energy, the 60 percent clean target for 2035 and cost-reflective tariffs

United Arab Emirates · Ruler of Abu Dhabi and the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy · statute · 2018

Where it stands: Law 11 of 2018 in force; the DoE licenses the sector, approves EWEC's capacity requirements and tariffs, and administers the 2035 clean target and the certificates scheme

Abu Dhabi Law No. 11 of 2018 created the Department of Energy as the emirate's economic and technical regulator for electricity, water and wastewater; the DoE now licenses every generator, approves EWEC's capacity requirements, proposes tariffs to the Executive Council rather than setting them itself, binds the sector to a Clean Energy Strategic Target 2035 of 60 percent of electricity production from clean sources, and issues the Clean Energy Certificates policy that lets buyers claim solar and nuclear attributes.

The problem

Abu Dhabi's sector had been governed since 1998 by a law that split the old water and electricity department into a regulator, a single buyer and asset companies, but by 2017 that structure was showing its age. Policy, regulation and ownership were tangled inside the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority; tariffs were heavily subsidised flat rates that gave expatriate and citizen households almost no reason to economise in a climate where cooling dominates load; and there was no institution with a clear mandate to plan a transition that would have to absorb nuclear baseload from Barakah and multi-gigawatt solar at the same time. There was also no way for a corporate buyer to substantiate a clean-energy claim, because the emirate had no certificate scheme, which mattered as aluminium, petrochemical and, later, data-centre customers began to demand verified attributes.

What it does

Law No. 11 of 2018 established the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy as the sector authority. The DoE reads the law as defining the Energy Sector to cover every activity in gas and petroleum, the generation, storage, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity from clean, renewable and conventional sources, water production and desalination, wastewater collection and treatment, and the production and supply of cooling liquids for district cooling; and it lists fourteen duties the law gives it, among them proposing strategic and executive plans, regulating through policies, codes, standards and resolutions, licensing every entity and individual working in the sector, monitoring compliance, promoting efficiency, and proposing fees, tariffs and prices to the Executive Council for approval. The DoE still lists two older laws as governing the sector alongside it, Law No. 2 of 1998 on regulation of the water and electricity sector as amended and Law No. 17 of 2005 on the sewerage company, and it has used its Law 11 district-cooling mandate to issue District Cooling Regulations in effect since September 2019. EWEC was itself formed in November 2018 as successor to the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Company. Ownership was separated into Abu Dhabi Power Corporation and then largely into TAQA and ADQ, leaving the DoE as regulator rather than owner. Three DoE instruments do most of the work. First, the Clean Energy Strategic Target 2035 for Electricity Production in Abu Dhabi, policy DoE/EC/G05/001 version 0, effective 19 July 2022, sets at clause 3.1.1 a target of sixty percent of electricity production in the emirate generated from clean sources by 2035, deliberately framed as an output ratio rather than a capacity share because a production measure tracks demand growth automatically, and calculated from production data EWEC reports to the DoE. Clause 3.2.1 is what makes it bite: from 2023 onward EWEC's Statement of Future Capacity, TRANSCO's seven-year transmission planning statement and ADDC's and AADC's five-year planning statements must each carry an indicative trajectory toward the target, the generation, transmission, distribution and storage projects needed to reach it, and the costs and benefits of those investments measured against a base case without the target. Clause 3.3.2 adds a curtailment duty, requiring EWEC, TRANSCO and the distribution companies to report to the DoE when significant curtailment of renewable output is needed and to say what capabilities would avoid it. Second, the Regulatory Policy for Clean Energy Certificates makes the DoE the only entity authorised to issue clean energy certificates in the emirate, in units of one megawatt-hour, with the I-REC Standard registry holding the ownership record and EWEC acting as single registrant, registering the renewable and nuclear plants and selling certificates to participants. The certificate price is unregulated and set bilaterally under clause 3.3.2 of that policy, and under clause 3.4.2 certificates issued in the emirate may only be redeemed within it, a restriction the DoE may lift wholly or partly on ninety days' written notice under clause 3.4.3. Third, on tariffs the DoE advises rather than decides. Law 11 has it propose fees, tariffs and prices to the Executive Council for approval, and the DoE states plainly that end-user tariffs are decided by government while it advises on tariff and subsidy levels and on the structures that drive efficient consumption, directing customers to the distribution companies AADC and ADDC for the schedules themselves. What the DoE does approve annually is the intra-sector pricing, the bulk supply tariff and the transmission use of system charges that sit inside the price controls it runs on EWEC, TRANSCO, ADDC, AADC and ADSSC. Alongside these it has begun regulating the demand side directly: the first phase of its Solar Energy Self-Supply Policy was launched at the World Government Summit in February 2026 for farms, rest houses and ranches, a second phase on 31 March 2026 extended it to villa owners and residential buildings with rooftop solar and battery storage integrated to the grid under a simplified connection and technical framework, and a companion policy on the procurement of efficient consumption appliances covers cooling, water heating, lighting, pumps, motors and irrigation.

Market effect

The regulator-plus-single-buyer split is what makes Abu Dhabi bankable. Because the DoE licenses and approves EWEC's Statement of Future Capacity Requirements, a developer can see the emirate's forward demand for capacity before a tender is issued, and because EWEC and not the network owner signs the power purchase agreement, project risk sits with a single creditworthy counterparty inside ADQ. The 60 percent target is the number that converts policy into tender volume: EWEC now expects more than 18 GW of solar in operation by 2035 and at least 10 GW by 2030, and forecasts that its average carbon intensity will fall 54 percent from 330 kg CO2 per MWh in 2019 to 150 kg per MWh in 2030, with more than half of Abu Dhabi's energy from renewable and clean sources by 2030. The Clean Energy Certificates scheme creates a second, separable revenue and compliance stream: EWEC has sold certificates to aluminium producers, exhibition and hospitality groups, healthcare operators and retailers, which lets corporates make verifiable claims without contracting for physical supply and gives EWEC a monetisation route for attributes it already owns. Two features of that scheme decide how useful it is to a buyer. The price is unregulated and bilateral, so there is no published clearing price to benchmark against, and certificates can currently only be redeemed inside Abu Dhabi, which means a company with sites in Dubai or the northern emirates cannot cover group-wide consumption from this scheme alone. Slab tariffs matter for the demand side: they bite hardest on high-consumption villas and on commercial buildings, which is where efficiency retrofit and district cooling investment has followed.

Key numbers

Clean Energy Strategic Target 2035
60 percent of electricity production in the emirate from clean sources by 2035, an output ratio, not a capacity share (policy DoE/EC/G05/001, clause 3.1.1, effective 19 July 2022)
Solar build path
At least 10 GW (AC) of solar by 2030 and more than 18 GW by 2035
Carbon intensity
From 330 kg CO2 per MWh in 2019 to 150 kg per MWh in 2030, a 54 percent fall
Clean Energy Certificates policy
Announced 29 August 2021; DoE is the sole issuer, EWEC the single registrant, certificates in 1 MWh units, price unregulated and bilateral, redemption restricted to the emirate
Demand-side policies
Solar Energy Self-Supply Policy phase 1 February 2026 (farms, rest houses, ranches) and phase 2 on 31 March 2026 (villas and residential buildings), plus an efficient-appliance procurement policy
Institutions created
Department of Energy (Law 11 of 2018) and EWEC (formed November 2018, successor to ADWEC)

Who gains and who pays

  • EWEC (obligation): Mandated by the DoE to deliver the 60 percent clean target and to act as single registrant for certificates.
  • Independent power producers in Abu Dhabi (gains): A licensed regulator, a published capacity requirement and a single creditworthy offtaker.
  • Corporate buyers (aluminium, healthcare, hospitality, retail, data centres) (gains): Quarterly clean energy certificate auctions allow verified claims without physical contracting.
  • High-consumption households and commercial customers (costs): Rising-block slab tariffs replace flat subsidised rates and raise the cost of waste.
  • TAQA and the asset companies (mixed): Regulated returns and licence obligations in exchange for a stable, planned pipeline.
  • Abu Dhabi Department of Energy (obligation): Must license, approve tariffs, issue certificates and police the 2035 target.

Implementation

The DoE implements through licences, regulatory policies and tariff approvals rather than through gazette notices, so the documents that bind a market participant are its generation and supply licences, the grid and distribution codes it approves, the annual tariff schedule and the Clean Energy Certificates policy. EWEC runs the quarterly certificate auctions and publishes the results, and it publishes a Statement of Future Capacity Requirements that the DoE approves and that sets the tender programme. Land allocation for renewable sites is coordinated with the DoE, the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, the Department of Municipalities and Transport, ADNOC and the Ministry of Defence, as in the December 2024 allocation of about 75 square kilometres across four sites. The tariff schedule is reissued periodically and is the main consumer-facing instrument, but it is published by AADC and ADDC rather than by the DoE, which is where the current slab rates, consumption thresholds and the citizen and expatriate differentiation have to be read. The 2035 target has its own enforcement rhythm: it binds through the planning statements the DoE approves each year rather than through a penalty, and clause 3.4.1 of the policy has the DoE review the target periodically to keep it aligned with UAE international commitments and with the evolution of generation and storage technology, so the number itself is revisable by the same instrument that set it.

Concerns

  • Tariffs are approved administratively, with no public rate case or appeal
  • Differentiated citizen and expatriate slab rates limit how far cost-reflectivity can go
  • Certificate auctions depend on EWEC's monopoly position as single registrant
  • The 60 percent target concentrates delivery risk in one procurer
  • Regulatory documents are dispersed across DoE, EWEC and utility sites rather than a single gazette
  • Rapid data-centre load growth can outrun the approved capacity plan between tender cycles
  • Clean energy certificates may only be redeemed inside Abu Dhabi, so they cannot cover a multi-emirate footprint
  • The 2035 target is revisable by the same DoE policy instrument that set it, with no legislative step

Dates to watch

  • 2030: At least 10 GW of solar, more than 50 percent clean energy and 150 kg CO2 per MWh
  • 2035: Clean Energy Strategic Target of 60 percent of electricity production from clean sources, and more than 18 GW of solar

Sources

Checked against sources on .