CHAPTER 3
Pairing Coal with Solar: The UAE’s
Fragmented Electricity Policy
Jim Krane
Introduction
The United Arab Emirates’ transformation over the past decade into
an interventionist player in regional and global politics has bled into
domestic energy policy, incentivizing the diversification of fuels and technology choices for electricity generation. A country that once depended
overwhelmingly on a single electricity source—thermal generation using
domestic natural gas—is quickly building out a diversified power sector
leveraging imports of gas in various forms, along with coal, nuclear, and
solar power.
The UAE’s fast-evolving power portfolio appears to have been assembled in a fragmented way, outside the reach of centralized planning and
without fully exploiting the national electricity grid. Instead, changes
in domestic energy policy revolve around questions of subnational
autonomy, comparative cost, and political risk.
J. Krane (B)
Rice University’s Baker Institute, Houston, TX, United States
e-mail: jkrane@rice.edu
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
R. Mills and L.-C. Sim (eds.), Low Carbon Energy in the Middle East
and North Africa, International Political Economy Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59554-8_3
57
Pairing Coal with Solar: The UAE’s
Fragmented Electricity Policy
Jim Krane
Introduction
The United Arab Emirates’ transformation over the past decade into
an interventionist player in regional and global politics has bled into
domestic energy policy, incentivizing the diversification of fuels and technology choices for electricity generation. A country that once depended
overwhelmingly on a single electricity source—thermal generation using
domestic natural gas—is quickly building out a diversified power sector
leveraging imports of gas in various forms, along with coal, nuclear, and
solar power.
The UAE’s fast-evolving power portfolio appears to have been assembled in a fragmented way, outside the reach of centralized planning and
without fully exploiting the national electricity grid. Instead, changes
in domestic energy policy revolve around questions of subnational
autonomy, comparative cost, and political risk.
J. Krane (B)
Rice University’s Baker Institute, Houston, TX, United States
e-mail: jkrane@rice.edu
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
R. Mills and L.-C. Sim (eds.), Low Carbon Energy in the Middle East
and North Africa, International Political Economy Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59554-8_3
57