Oil producing Gulf states are curbing domestic consumption of fossil fuels

We like a delicious irony and this article in the Guardian hits the spot. It reports on a growing awareness in the oil producing Gulf states that they’d be better off exporting all of their major cash crop. Profligate and wasteful domestic energy consumption is unsustainable with oil and gas prices at the levels they are. A new zeal for renewables, and in particular, solar, makes sense for a region particularly suited to generating large amounts of electricity from the sun.

This quote from the Iranian Ministry of Energy in particular suggests that they really get it.   

“Renewables can be the same as fossil fuel because the price of oil is decreasing but the cost of transmission is very high.”

Solar PV allows electricity to be produced at the point of immediate demand. From the roof of a factory or chilling plant for example. It requires no expensive pipelines (which have also become a security headache in Saudi Arabia), no tankers, no refineries and no army of ex-pat workers to keep the electricity flowing once the system is built. Generating more energy for business, homes and transport from solar resources means that more oil and gas can be turned into much needed export dollars. It’s something another major hydrocarbon exporter - Norway - got to grips with years ago. Norway isn’t as favourable for solar as the Gulf states but it does have huge geothermal energy capacity and uses it to provide domestic electricity which explains why Norwegians buy more Teslas than any other market outside of the US.  

Incidentally, our preferred panel manufacturer, REC, is of course, Norwegian. 

Enjoy The Guardian story here.