If you are born ‘with a silver spoon in your mouth’ you will have the best phone your parents’ money can buy. If your country is sitting on top of a bonanza of crude oil you can have everything else you want. Now the UAE, whose oil contributed greatly to global warming has made an about turn and gone solidly green. It is now boasting it owns the worlds biggest virtual battery in what may prove the ultimate irony.
The UAE Just Switched on the Worlds Biggest Virtual Battery
On January 30, 2019 the United Arab Emirates switched on what it claims is the worlds biggest virtual battery. Their 108 MW/648 MWh sodium-sulfur battery plant in Abu Dhabi is five times larger than the Tesla one in Australia. Moreover that Hornsdale one uses lithium-ion technology. This is an intriguing setback for the macro-market-grab Tesla has been planning for a while.
The worlds biggest virtual battery, as the UAE calls it is actually distributed in 10 different locations. However, it controls all the solar panels from a central point, which it evidently regards as justification for the claim.
“We Will Cerebrate that Moment” Says Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed
The Emirates has lagged behind in the renewable energy race. In fact, its first commercial solar power plant only came online in 2013. It however now plans to generate ‘the vast majority of its electrical energy’ that way by 2050.
”In 50 years, when we might have the last barrel of oil… I can tell you we will celebrate that moment,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi said a few years ago.
The Emirate population clusters mainly along the coastline where it is increasingly under threat from rising sea levels. The entire world’s wealth will not be enough to prevent this happening, at least in the short term. Even if we were to do something significant now.
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