The launch of the first solar power plant in the Arab World, Shams One, in Abu Dhabi, a project of the UAE's Masdar, was an occasion to examine the future of this renewable energy source, to produce electricity in the Arab world. Middle East countries certainly have a lot of sunshine and also wide areas in which to establish such projects. Today, a good chunk of electricity in the Arab world comes from oil and gas, and this is very expensive for all countries. Replacing some of the oil and gas that produces electricity with solar plants is now economically viable with the fall in the price of the technology used by solar power. Solar power development technologies are becoming rapidly less expensive. The cost of Shams One to produce 100 megawatts, which could supply around 20,000 homes, was $600 million, which is very high, because of the technology, which uses rows of parabolic mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays, to heat water, and use the steam to generate electricity. Today, other solar technologies, such as photovoltaics and sand, have become less expensive, meaning the energy used to generate electricity is less expensive, and it is clean. This technology is also being modernized and updated on a prompt and regular basis. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, is currently undertaking a huge and ambitious solar energy project, to replace the consumption of local petroleum in electricity production. The Kingdom consumes around 800,000 barrels of its oil to produce electricity and fuel locally, while developing solar energy could allow oil countries to save their oil, and export it for more than $100 a barrel. The projects also create job opportunities and generate economic activity. Solar power, which is clean energy, has a promising future anywhere in the Arab world, and not just in rich countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, but also in the Maghreb, from Algeria to Morocco, where projects have begun to be developed, as well as Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, among others. Developing solar power based on panels or mirrors will last a long time, according to experts in the field (around 30 to 40 years). Research is underway on the storage of solar power at night, and now Shams One will use some gas to generate electricity at night, when the sun is not shining. However, the studies currently underway, and international oil companies such as France's Total, are participating in the research to reduce the cost of storing electricity produced during the day by the sun at night, because it is currently high. According to the firm, this research might arrive at reducing the cost of storage by half in five to seven years, which would allow the construction of a solar power plant with a storage plant for electricity produced during the day, so that everyone using solar power at home would have a small electricity storage unit for nighttime. Total's solar power experts say this might be achieved by 2020, while there are many American labs working on developing storage, and this is proceeding rapidly. Thus, a number of countries in the Middle East should pay attention to developing clean energy and following the swift progress that is taking place in the field of electricity generation. For instance this should apply to Lebanon, instead of waiting for many years to find its oil or gas, which is not a certainty, since international oil company experts were surprised by comments by the UK's Spectrum, which said Lebanon had promising quantities in maritime areas after seismic studies were conducted. The experts said that this information could not be issued as long as no wells had been dug, as only this would lead to certainty. The announcement by Spectrum was considered a scandal by the experts; it would be better for Lebanon to look into producing solar energy, like Jordan and Morocco.
