Masdar and Chinese clean-energy firm Sungrow have signed an agreement to supply battery storage and inverter solutions for the UAE's world-first gigascale round-the-clock (RTC) renewable energy project in Abu Dhabi.
Under the agreement, Sungrow will provide 7.5GWh of its PowerTitan 3.0 energy-storage systems alongside 2.6GW of photovoltaic inverters, hardware central to the project's reliability and efficiency.
Baseload power from the sun
The RTC project, developed by Masdar with Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC), combines 5.2GW of solar photovoltaic capacity with a 19GWh battery energy storage system. The scale is designed to overcome the intermittency that has long limited solar — the fact that panels only generate while the sun shines — by storing surplus daytime output and releasing it after dark.
The result is intended to be steady, baseload electricity delivered around the clock, a capability historically associated with gas or nuclear rather than solar.
A global benchmark
Once operational, the project is expected to produce gigascale baseload renewable energy at a globally competitive tariff for the first time. It is scheduled to start operations in 2027.
For Masdar, Abu Dhabi's clean-energy champion, the project is a flagship for its strategy of pairing very large solar plants with storage to make renewables dispatchable. For the UAE, it supports the national goal of reaching net zero by 2050 and reduces reliance on gas for power generation. The deal also underlines how central battery storage has become to the energy transition: without it, the country's abundant sunshine cannot reliably meet demand at night or during peak evening hours. Industry observers are watching the project as a template for utility-scale solar-plus-storage that could be replicated in other sun-rich markets.