The cost of construction of any future solar power plants in Abu Dhabi is set lower following the opening of Shams 1 earlier this year.

Speaking at MEED’s MENA Power conference in Abu Dhabi on 6 November, Abdul al-Obaidli, process performance engineer at Shams Company said that if a Shams 2 were to be built it could be up to 30 per cent cheaper than the cost of the first project.

“There are new suppliers and new EPC contractors coming to the market… we learned a lot from Shams 1,” he said, before adding that as yet there are no concrete plans for the development of a second power plant.

Shams 1 was built in the Western region of Abu Dhabi and opened in March this year. Financial close on the project was reached in early 2011. A group of ten international and regional banks raised $600m in project financing to support the development.

The 100MW-project one of the largest concentrated solar power plants in the world. It was built by Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, in partnership with the French firm Total and Spain’s Abengoa.

In the long-term there will be a need to build more renewable power plants in Abu Dhabi, with the emirate setting a target of achieving 7 per cent renewable energy power generation capacity by 2020.