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ABU DHABI / WAM
A recent report issued by the Statistics Centre — Abu Dhabi (SCAD) revealed that the production of electricity from solar energy in the emirate of Abu Dhabi reached 280,085 MW per hour, a growth of 6.1 percent compared to 2015.
The Abu Dhabi government has given considerable attention to renewable energy as part of its efforts to diversify energy sources; this is evidenced by many of the projects implemented by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Masdar.
According to the report, the volume of electricity consumption increased by 54.5 percent during the period from 2011 to 2016 to 66,811 GWh. It explained that the volume of consumption includes the local consumption for power stations and missing infrastructure networks, noting that natural gas accounts for 99.7 percent of the total fuel used in the generation of power, due to economic, technical and environmental considerations.
As for water desalination, the report indicates that the emirate’s consumption during the past year reached 1,117 million cubic metres, at a rate of 3 million cubic meters per day.
The report explained that the daily per capita consumption of desalinated water increased by 16.1 percent between 2011 and 2016, highlighting that this increase is due to increased demand for water from different sectors.