DUBAI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Sunday officially opened its first big solar energy plant, the three companies behind the project said in a statement.
The 100-megawatt (MW) Shams 1 concentrated solar plant (CSP) took the UAE's Masdar, France's Total and Spain's Abengoa three years to build at a cost of around $600 million.
Shams 1 is one of the largest CSP projects in the world and by far the largest solar plant in a fossil fuel reliant region that lags far behind much of Europe, the Americas and Asia in renewable energy.