wiredInUSA January 2020

Desert sun

New telecommunications corridor

EWEC CEO Othman Al-Ali

Bids have been received to cover the financing, construction, operation and maintenance of possibly the world’s biggest solar power plant project. The 2GW project in the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi is being built by Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) and will cover 20km 2 of desert. “EWEC has already delivered the world’s current largest single-site solar PV project, Noor Abu Dhabi, on time and on budget,” said EWEC CEO Othman Al-Ali. “This new plant is integral to our strategic plan to deliver on the clean energy mix outlined by the UAE Energy Strategy 2050.” It will be almost double the size of the 1.2GW Noor Abu Dhabi solar plant. Once operational, the plant will raise Abu Dhabi’s solar power capacity to around 3.2GW.

In late November 2019 Kazakh Prime Minister, Askar Mamin and Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov officially launched the construction of a subsea fiber optic link between the two countries. The cable will stretch beneath the Caspian Sea. PM Mamin told Prime Minister Asadov: “It will allow you [Azerbaijan] to reach a higher level of development of high-speed and secure data transmission infrastructure, join the leading Europe-Asia trunk routes, and take your rightful place in world data transit.” The project is designed to be transcontinental and will create up to 400km of digital telecommunications corridor between Europe and Asia. Kazakhstan’s Transtelecom and KazTransCom, and Azerbaijani telecom operator AzerTelecom, will lay the cable, which is expected to be in operation by late 2021. It will allow the transmission of data with a capacity of at least 4Tb per second. Investment in the project is estimated at $60 million. The final fiber optic route will connect China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Germany. Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin and Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Ali Asadov attended the launch ceremony

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wiredInUSA January 2020