Solar projects continue to face delays
Gulf renewables drive stalls
The region’s efforts to build up its clean power capacity have foundered on rising costs and project delays
Mideast Gulf petrostates trumpeted their newfound commitment to domestic decarbonisation in November as Cop26 shone an unwelcome spotlight on a region considered central to the problem. But six months on, the Gulf’s renewables sector is beset with delays as spiralling raw material costs radically shift project economics. A long trend of falling solar and wind costs in the years preceding the coronavirus pandemic has ended, leaving developers in the region, accustomed to setting world pricing records, pondering how to proceed. The phenomenon is a global one. A study published in October by consultancy Rystad Energy predicted that 56pc of the 90GW of solar PV projects—the bedrock of Middle Eas
Also in this section
22 July 2025
Sinopec hosts launch of global sharing platform as Beijing looks to draw on international investors and expertise
22 July 2025
Africa’s most populous nation puts cap-and-trade and voluntary markets at the centre of its emerging strategy to achieve net zero by 2060
17 July 2025
Oil and gas companies will face penalties if they fail to reach the EU’s binding CO₂ injection targets for 2030, but they could also risk building underused and unprofitable CCS infrastructure
9 July 2025
Latin American country plans a cap-and-trade system and supports the scale-up of CCS as it prepares to host COP30
