MESIA Unveils Winners Of The 2019 Solar Awards
In the welcoming setting of the Aloft Hotel in Abu Dhabi and in partnership with the World Future Energy Summit – Solar 2019, the Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA) unveiled the winners of the 2019 Middle East Solar Awards during a gala ceremony on January 16, 2019. The Industry leading PV Magazine also distributed their annual awards under the patronage and support of MESIA
In total, there were 11 trophies in competition across several sectors.
MESIA focus on industry diversity category of Woman of the Year celebrated the wining of a researcher at the R&D department of DEWA, Dr. Aaesha Alunaimi. Dr Aaesha has been awarded for her amazing work and leadership in the research on PV performance and reliability. She dedicated her effort on finding new ways to mitigates failure and degradation of PV modules in desert climatic condition.
Entrepreneur of the Year went to Alexandre Allegue, the Founder of Pawame. Alexandre, who also works with ACWA Power, founded and drove the growth of Pawame, a Solar Pay-as-you-Go company, born and domiciled in the UAE. Pawame currently operates in Kenya, where in just 2 years they have changed the lives of more than 30,000 people and created over 300 jobs.
We were thrilled to present NEXTracker with the Utility Scale Solar Project of the Year award in recognition for their work on the Sakaka solar project in Al Jouf, Saudi Arabia. Nextracker offers a combination of bankability, local content manufacturing capability, and has optimized tracker design for rapid installation of this first utility scale project in Saudi Arabia.
Enerwhere came strong again this year, The team, led by Daniel Zywietz founder and CEO, once again took the Industrial Solar Project Award for having completed Phase 1 of the largest solar rooftop installation on the Mai Dubai Water Bottling Plant in Dubai. Upon completion in early 2019, the 18 MWp plant will be the largest solar rooftop project in the MENA region.
Strong competition for the Roof-Top Solar Project of the Year category was observed. The award went to MASSADER - Natural Resources & Infrastructure Development Co. Massader was selected by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education to develop a national program and deploy solar PV systems on 500 rooftops of public schools and universities in Palestine with a total generation capacity of 35 MW.
The Regional company of the Year award which usually receives the most attention by the Jury went this year to ACWA Power for their unmatched contribution in the renewable industry and impact on MENA. In 2018, ACWA Power developed and financed renewable energy projects and water desalination projects with capacities of 2.75GW and 75MIGD respectively, and raised 3,700 MUSD in financing. We would also highlight, among others, 2 of these projects: the 300MW Sakaka PV project in Saudi Arabia and the 950MW DEWA IV solar CSP/PV hybrid project in Dubai.
The Financial Advisor of the Year award went to Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory. They successfully facilitated a strategic investment into Greencells, a key European EPC & solution provider of solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants, by OMAS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Zahid Group, a diversified Saudi Arabian conglomerate. The Zahid subsidiary OMAS gained a 50% stake in Greencells.
The Legal Advisor of the Year accolade went to Pinsent Masons who is currently advising the successful EPC Contractor in the 950MW Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Photovoltaic (PV) project procured by DEWA and a number of CSP projects in Northern Africa. The 950MW project is the first CSP project in the region using a combination of CSP and PV technologies and is extremely significant for Dubai.
MESIA awards would also like to recognise some dynamic and visionary companies. The Best Solar Innovation Award went to Desolenator for photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) technology for desalination. This new technology is applied to enhance drinking water production from sea water and can run continuously 24/7 and off-the-grid.
For the 3rd year and to honor the WFES - Solar 2019, jointly with the WFES organizer, we decided to recognize the “most innovative technology on display”. This award went to the Power Blox 200 by Staubli. This is a new innovative energy system that can instantly deliver 230 V AC from 200W up to the kilowatt range of alternative current. It can be powered by a solar unit or any external source such as wind, hydro-thermal, biomass, fuel cell or generator.
Last but not least, the Solar Energy Picture of the Year went to Ghadir Shaar who took a wonderful aerial picture of 1MW of a ground mount solar project in Dubai's desert at the Emirates poultry. The picture has been taken with a drone at sunset.
“The MESIA awards selection was conducted by a panel of 7 judges from around the MENA Region and from highly respected institutions such as the Ministries of Energy in UAE and Jordan, IRENA, Saudi Electricity Company, Masdar, Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company and Dubai Supreme Council of Energy. The respected jury reviewed and evaluated around 80 applications coming from all over the 5 continents.
This annual gala ceremony, organized by MESIA and sponsored by its valued members Siraj Power, Huawei, NEXTracker, Scan Electromechanical, PV Magazine in conjunction with the 2019 WFES, was attended by over 350 dignitaries, government officials and senior business executives from across the world.
With MESIA celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2019, I am looking for the next year WFES where we will celebrate further successes for MESIA members and bring more competition to the annual MESIA award.” said Ahmed Nada, President of MESIA.
