The Middle East has been slow in adopting to renewable energy owing partly to abundant wealth of hydrocarbons. However, the past five years has seen a huge growth in switching to renewable energy. The amount of planned renewable energy capacity to be installed by 2020 has more than doubled in the last 3 years.

Recent release of Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA)'s report forecasts that the MENA region could see US $50bn investments in solar power industries. The growth in solar industry by 2020 is expected to be a huge sum of US$190 billions.

Currently only 6% of the electricity generated comes from renewable sources-The major sources are  hydroelectric power plants followed by wind energy sources. The future targets generating solar based electricity in more than half of the future projects. The country with the most ambitious target is Saudi Arabia, with nearly 25,000 MW of renewable capacity planned by 2020 from almost nothing today. The projects are controlled by the King Abdullah City for Atomic & Renewable Energy (KACARE).

Presently photovoltaic (PV) technology dominates solar projects in the region. However, concentrating solar power (CSP) is gaining ground especially for larger projects, and is expected to equal PV in terms of installed capacity by 2020.

The UAE also has launched Shams 1 – the world?s largest concentrated solar power plant (CSP) in operation. The 100MW plant, located in the western region of Abu Dhabi powers 20,000 homes. Dubai too opened the first phase of a 13 MW photovoltaic park last year, with a capacity to generate 1,000MW of power when completed.

Qatar recently opened a solar-panel factory that plans to produce 2.5GW of solar energy annually. "It Is an exciting future for solar energy and we have nOt even scratched the surface," Qatar Solar Energy company (QSE) board member Reyad Fezzani says. "hydrocarbons are going to be with us for many years, but we need to move towards environmentally friendly energy sources," he adds.

The above moves are expected to significantly lower the climate change impact of ever rising use of electricity.