Thank you for your answer :)

But with respect to what we are gaining, and thinking of what we loose, if this a proper reason to NOT install solar panels in a place which is abundantly rich in solar energy?

Maintenance is something that is required in each and everything after the making of that service or product. That goes almost with all the services in the world. In case of offices, cleaners maintain the cleanliness, in case of software - An upgradation is always available to FIX bugs later on. So does that mean that we will only think of these things and stop upgrading software. Climatic conditions are on their verge of catastrophe right now, do you think it is fair to use a reason of maintenance. I have lived in the UAE myself for 4 years. Labor is not costly in the UAE. I hope that as a researcher I have bought light into this matter and awareness to you. As I received the same from you too :)

Labor cost is not cheap in U.A.E, and solar plants are having the main running cost the plant panels cleaning along with heavy initial investment, with unused of available crude oil.......

Thank you for your answer :)

But with respect to what we are gaining, and thinking of what we loose, if this a proper reason to NOT install solar panels in a place which is abundantly rich in solar energy?

Maintenance is something that is required in each and everything after the making of that service or product. That goes almost with all the services in the world. In case of offices, cleaners maintain the cleanliness, in case of software - An upgradation is always available to FIX bugs later on. So does that mean that we will only think of these things and stop upgrading software. Climatic conditions are on their verge of catastrophe right now, do you think it is fair to use a reason of maintenance. I have lived in the UAE myself for 4 years. Labor is not costly in the UAE. I hope that as a researcher I have bought light into this matter and awareness to you. As I received the same from you too :)

Dear Shahida Anusha Siddiqui ,

welcome!

I think the best one who can answer this question satisfactorily is the energy minister in the UAE. The decision to use certain types of energy resources is a matter of political social and economical aspects.

i can only guess why UAE not installing large PV power stations to date because it is well covered with thermal electricity generation plants. UAE has good oil reserve and instead of selling it all they use part of it in their land. It is still cheaper than the PV generation.

I expect one day UAE will turn to the PV generation at least partly.

I would like that you follow the paper in the link:Article A road map for transformation from conventional to photovolt...

Shahida Anusha Siddiqui, in your original question, you say that "solar panels initially cost too much. But once installed, they pose to be the main cost-effective source of producing energy." I am in not very familiar with the topic, and I would appreciate if you could answer some of the questions I have about this issue. THANK YOU.

• "The sixth concept is dividing the population to groups of about 25 million each and building a factory for each one to produce their PV renewable power stations."

About 9.6 million people currently reside in the UAE. There are about 7.6 billion people on Earth. How would you reconcile these two numbers with the groupings in Dr. Zekry's proposal?

How would an electricity sharing contract work between countries? How about just emirates? For example, if solar farms are all in the desert in Abu Dhabi emirate, in what way would you assure the people of Ajman city that they will have a reliable source of electricity?

• "It is needed to return to the natural life where the activities of peoples are concentrated in the days. [Dr. Zekry's seventh concept]"

Do you think this is realistic and desirable? If so, then how would you mandate such a plan? Dr. Zekry's claim that "factories are the major consumers" does not seem to be applicable to the UAE. But in any case I doubt that you would save any energy by, every night, shutting down the machinery used in heavy manufacturing/industry (like foundries, mills) - probably the opposite!

While I'm not an expert in the physics or logistics of electrical power, I have become aware of the very hard problems involved in the mass utilization of solar energy. And while putting light collectors on buildings, etc., is certainly appealing, I am hesitant to advocate strongly on the topic knowing the seemingly enormous practical limitations involved. If solar power is only really usable as a secondary addition, per-household, to some theoretical primary source of power, then that source should be the major topic and solar power is of little relevance in the conversation on energy policy.

Shahida Anusha Siddiqui, judging by your own enthusiastic advocacy for solar power in the UAE, and claims that its slow adoption is a matter of trivial societal stubbornness, I again am curious as to your answers to the above. I myself hold no position one way or the other, but try to approach things critically, and skeptically, i.e., scientifically, and anyway am something of a cynic by nature. By the way I've never been to the UAE or anywhere nearby there, so details about UAE are just from going by the metrics I found online.

Sorry about the long post but I tried my best to make my questions clear and detailed. :-)

Miky Timothy

Thank you very much for commenting and criticizing my proposal for the transformation from conventional to PV electricity generation.

Electric machines can be started and stopped in very short time and the starting and stopping losses are not very lossy.

May be you speak about the thermal power stations.

When the fossil fuels are no longer available and or get expensive then one may turn to the solar energy as sustainable energy sources.

Thank you again for shedding light on my proposed plan.

Best wishes

Abdelhalim abdelnaby Zekry Thank you so much for your nice response. It is indeed the issue that you have pointed to and I agree. The main thing that actually stands in the way is policies that are generated to implement a technology. And this is where, in my opinion, most things lag behind.

Miky Timothy I thank you for your message. Indeed it is a long yet a nice question. Your keen interest and questions have actually made me more interested in looking for answers even more :). So thanks for that indeed.

Coming to your questions:

1. Do you think solar power should be the primary source of energy in the UAE?

Why not would be the main question that I would ask here. I look at things from a whole perspective. I know that not just the environment is being affected by the ways we use energy and transform it from one form to another, but I also know that the environment is deeply connected to the wildlife that we have on Earth and hence we are dependent of the wildlife and climate both. This is not something that can anymore be taken for granted I think. So why delaying something that should be done anyways. I am not only talking about the UAE, but also about all countries/areas that have or receive abundant sunlight. Why not use something that is basically already 'FREE OF COST' and harness it ourselves, for which, thankfully, we also have the tools now.

2&3. How does the UAE presently store their surplus solar energy at night? If a surplus is not yet ever generated, how do you propose they store solar electricity once capacity is increased?

For this, the easiest thing that comes to my mind is solar batteries. Solar panels would harness the sun's energy and then store it into the solar batteries which could be used at night. It's simple and easy work if you ask me. I am not so aware of hoe much this is applied in UAE. But I think you could find some useful information on: https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-uae-where-solar-energy-is-abundant-about-to-open-four-nuclear-reactors-130248#:~:text=We%20believe%20in%20the%20free%20flow%20of%20information&text=The%20United%20Arab%20Emirates%20(UAE,solar%20heat%20to%20generate%20electricity.

They are working on it. Which I am extremely happy about :).

4. I am curious as to your opinions on Abdelhalim Zekry's attached proposal, and would like to draw your attention to two suggestions in his outline:

• "The sixth concept is dividing the population to groups of about 25 million each and building a factory for each one to produce their PV renewable power stations."

About 9.6 million people currently reside in the UAE. There are about 7.6 billion people on Earth. How would you reconcile these two numbers with the groupings in Dr. Zekry's proposal?

Have a look at this, specially the image (You'll be shocked): https://www.axionpower.com/knowledge/power-world-with-solar/#:~:text=Surface%20Area%20Requirement%20for%20Solar,an%2018.54%20TW%20solar%20plant.

That's the total surface area on Earth that we require to install solar plants - to get abundant energy - which is from nature. What stops us from doing it? I don't know.

I hope that this answers all of your questions in totality. I again, thank you both, Abdelhalim abdelnaby Zekry and Miky Timothy for your lovely comments and nice discussions, and very interesting and intriguing questions.

In 1980 I made the first controls for the use of thermal solar energy. As I could learn from the systems, we need at least a energy storage for a few more than a day. In the UAE you may have sunshine every day - but the night follows.

Thermal energy we can store in tanks, filled with water or some other, equivalent heat storing substance. For electrical energy, there is no sufficient storage for current. And we have one major problem more: a thermal power plant needs up to one day from starting to full power. That is the problem in the German electrical grid, spreading to whole Europe. We need the power plants running, but they are forced, not to deliver current into the grid, as the sun shines or wind is blowing.

There are some new ideas needed, to run an electrical grid effectively in co-generation of classic sources and solar energy.

Karl Prodinger Thank you for your lovely response. But then, what about battery storage? Is that not a good idea? How about storing that energy into the batteries?

@Shahida: It is possible to store electric energy in batteries. But - loading the battery means, that there are losses. And a simple calculation shows, that storing electric energy is not really cheap: We can use a battery for 500 cycles, as an example. Storing 1 kW causes costs of 200 Dollars, only for the calculation. That means, each charging and decharging cyclus causes 40 cent per kWh, only for the storage system. In industry we pay 2...3 cents per kWh. The current considerations run into supercaps, but they are expensive, bulky and loose charge in a short time. One solution may be the influence the use of electric energy than expensive storage.