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