January 16, 2019

MENA Solar Market Reaches $20 Billion – Official Launch Of Solar Outlook Report

The 2019 Solar Outlook Report sheds light on recent developments in MENAs solar markets and outlines the trends that will shape these markets in the years ahead. They key highlights are:

The region’s solar market is now worth $20 billion. There is $5 billion worth of solar projects operating across MENA with another $15 billion of projects set come online in next 5 years.
Prices for solar technolog continues to fall. The 200 MW Kom Ombo solar PV project in Egypt and the 150 MW Round 3 solar PV tender in Jordan both received low bids of 2.752 US$ cent/kWh and 2.488 US$ cent/kWh respectively. This is around 50% cheaper than the natural gas-based price for electricity. It is expected that in the next 3 years the price for solar will reach 1 US$ cent/kWh which would make it among the cheapest in the world.
New markets are opening up for solar investments across the MENA region. Saudi Arabia started construction on its first utility scale PV project (300 MW Sakaka) The Kingdom is on track to award 58,000 MW of solar power by 2030, making it one of the top 5 solar markets in the world. Jordan and Lebanon are also in the process of awarding some of the first utility scale storage tenders in the region. Algeria, Tunisia and Oman are also launching major solar projects.

“We are thrilled to see how rapidly solar energy has grown towards becoming a multi-billion dollar industry. The pace of change has been incredible over the past 10 years when MESIA first began promoting solar energy. And the future for solar continues to shine brightly,” said Vahid Fotuhi, the founder of MESIA.

Energy storage solutions are becoming more competitive as the costs of PV panel prices, battery storage systems and concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies continue to decline. Unsubsidized energy storage solutions are now cost competitive with those offered by fossil fuel power plants. We expect that, as prices continue to fall the battery storage market in the region will grow rapidly and make solar power a 24 hour/day energy solution

The solar rooftop segment will continue to grow particularly in the commercial and industrial (C&I) space as new (low-cost) financing options emerge and the regulations (e.g. net metering) get implemented.

While the EV market is rapidly growing on a global scale, regional growth is still not very high because regulation to support increased adoption is lacking in many markets. We also took note of the second life use cases of EV batteries, which can retain 60-70% of their original capacity, thereby complementing growth in the storage segment.