DUBAI // Despite year-round sunlight, plans to make solar power a primary energy source in the UAE are hindered by the all-pervasive dust in the atmosphere whipped up from the desert.
A layer of sand renders solar panels useless, regardless of how bright, and how long, the sun shines each day. But one company could have the solution to the Emirate’s green energy problems in the form of a specially designed cleaning robot.
Nomadd has designed a durable, waterless cleaning robot that “crawls” from one solar panel to another, saving thousands of man hours and countless more litres of water.
Already the firm, which is based in Saudi Arabia, is in talks with several upcoming projects in the region, including Dubai.
Georg Eitelhuber, acting chief executive, was a teacher at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust), when he saw for himself what happened to solar panels when they were caught in a dust storm.
“Within a few hours they were filthy,” he said. “I realised that if there was to be a growth in solar in the Middle East, this would have to be one of the key problems that would be solved.”
Nomadd was started three years ago, with start-up costs of less than US$1 million (Dh3.67m) and seed money provided by Kaust. The first working model of the robot was built out of Lego.
The commercial launch of the Nomadd robot comes at a time when the solar industry in the region is beginning to boom.
According to the Middle East Solar Industry Association, by 2020 there could be $50 billion worth of investment in new solar parks.
Last year Abu Dhabi opened Shams 1, a 100-megawatt solar park that generates enough energy to power 20,000 homes. Dubai, too, opened the first phase of a 13-megawatt solar park, that once completed will generate one gigawatt of power.
The biggest investments, however, are in Saudi Arabia, which aims to build 41 gigawatts worth of solar parks by 2020 – the equivalent of more than 20,000 football fields.
Mr Eitelhuber said cleaning a facility of that size would be much more cost effective with robots rather than by employing “thousands of men with squeegees”.
“The labour force required to clean something like that is just astronomical,” he said. “Plus you’d have to install a whole bunch of new desalination plants, using oil-based electricity, to make the water to clean these arrays. It’s completely impossible.”
He said factoring in cleaning costs for solar parks was often overlooked in the rush to build greater and more expensive developments.
“If a dust storm hits you can lose 50 per cent of the performance of the array in just two hours,” he said. “And that will stay at 50 per cent until you clean it. If you can’t clean 10,000 football fields of solar cells in a day, you lose a huge amount of output, which drastically affects your end-of-year bottom-line profit.
“Add to that the uncertainty of labour costs over the next 20 years, in addition to water costs over 20 years. No one has a clue where those costs are going to go. Our business case is that we’ll remove all that uncertainty.”
Mr Eitelhuber said the robots would cost about $100,000 per megawatt generated. They would be able to pay for themselves in three years.
A single robot can crawl over a 400-metre row of conjoined solar panels, completing a wash of that size in about 30 minutes.
Of all the challenges Mr Eitelhuber had to overcome, designing a robot that could withstand the harsh desert environment was the most difficult. He quickly found that similar devices used in the US and Europe just would not cut it.
The finished design looks like a big, unlovely block. But that was the intention, Mr Eitelhuber said.
“What it boils down to is a case of simplicity being equated with beauty,” he said. “The fewer moving parts, the less complexity you can engineer into it, the more reliable it will be.
“The more things you’ve got, the more things that can fail. There’re no exposed parts because the desert will just eat it alive.”
mcroucher@thenational.ae
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The daughter of an English mother and Emirati father, Shams excelled at rugby in Dubai, then after attending university in the UK played for England at sevens.
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Company name: Ogram
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- Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder that affects the lungs, pancreas and other organs.
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- Life expectancy for sufferers of cystic fibrosis is now around 50 years.
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When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
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The years Ramadan fell in May
Teaching your child to save
Pre-school (three - five years)
You can’t yet talk about investing or borrowing, but introduce a “classic” money bank and start putting gifts and allowances away. When the child wants a specific toy, have them save for it and help them track their progress.
Early childhood (six - eight years)
Replace the money bank with three jars labelled ‘saving’, ‘spending’ and ‘sharing’. Have the child divide their allowance into the three jars each week and explain their choices in splitting their pocket money. A guide could be 25 per cent saving, 50 per cent spending, 25 per cent for charity and gift-giving.
Middle childhood (nine - 11 years)
Open a bank savings account and help your child establish a budget and set a savings goal. Introduce the notion of ‘paying yourself first’ by putting away savings as soon as your allowance is paid.
Young teens (12 - 14 years)
Change your child’s allowance from weekly to monthly and help them pinpoint long-range goals such as a trip, so they can start longer-term saving and find new ways to increase their saving.
Teenage (15 - 18 years)
Discuss mutual expectations about university costs and identify what they can help fund and set goals. Don’t pay for everything, so they can experience the pride of contributing.
Young adulthood (19 - 22 years)
Discuss post-graduation plans and future life goals, quantify expenses such as first apartment, work wardrobe, holidays and help them continue to save towards these goals.
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Three ways to limit your social media use
Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.
1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.
2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information.
3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.
Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”