Amid a global surge in energy use caused in part by the growing number of data centres for artificial intelligence, Taqa Generation’s chief executive says the UAE power company is up to the task of meeting demand.
Farid Al Awlaqi made the comments during a panel discussion moderated by The National on Thursday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
“There’s a massive surge globally and we are very well positioned to address it,” the chief executive said during the session titled Power is knowledge – AI and energy.
Taqa Generation is the energy-producing arm of Taqa, sometimes referred to as Abu Dhabi National Energy Company.
it runs energy facilities in the UAE and around the world. Mr Al Awlaqi has a unique perspective on the changes that have affected Taqa and the energy sector as a whole.
He was made chief executive in 2020, before AI was dominating headlines and when sustainability, decarbonisation, net-zero and climate goals were the dominant themes.
With an unprecedented AI boom and other factors causing a rapid rise in electricity demand, some fear sustainability is becoming lost in the shuffle, but Mr Awlaqi said that is a false dichotomy.
“Some say it's all about energy for AI but it's actually AI for energy,” he said, pointing out that many energy experts and even critics of the AI boom agree the technology is helping to find previously untapped ways that utility companies and energy producers can be more efficient.
“For us AI helps for more energy to be discovered from the energy we produce,” he said.
Taqa works with Masdar, Abu Dhabi's clean energy company, and uses gas as well renewables, all while harnessing AI to improve efficiency and, in turn, keep sustainability paramount.
“At one point when everybody was talking about renewables, gas and thermal was considered old and out,” he said.
“But what we discovered is that they go hand in hand, you can't deploy one with out the other." As a quick and reactive power source, gas is handy because it can balance out the intermittency of renewables, he added.
“AI comes into the picture for that and helps balance everything out,” he said. We are only in the initial stages of discovering the efficiencies that AI can assist with, he added.
The share of renewables in Taqa's portfolio has grown from 5 per cent several years ago to 60 per cent today. “That's us targeting our sustainability responsibilities, as well as trying to meet the massive energy demand,” Mr Awlaqi said.
He added that Taqa's global reach gives the company a competitive advantage at keeping lights on around the world.
“We really leverage our global footprint and purchasing power along with our special relationships with all the suppliers,” he said. “We're able to take power stations from on paper and produce it in about two years.”
So far, the strategy seems to be working. Mr Awlaqi said the energy company's capacity, which hovered around 20 gigawatts in 2020, has since risen to 72GW.
“And today we have a mandate to have 150GW by 2030,” he said, emphasising that both renewables and gas are used as sources.
