Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has renewed its 2017 Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. The document was signed by Mohamed Al Hammadi, CEO of ENEC, and Alexey Likhachov, Rosatom director general, in Abu Dhabi during Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit to the United Arab Emirates.

“I’m worried about the decline of nuclear in the energy mix if governments don’t change their policies,” Birol said referring to new capacity and lifespan extensions.

"Developed countries have witnessed sluggish growth of nuclear power - except for six units in Finland, France, the US and the UK, no other nuclear power plant had been built in North America and the EU area for about 30 years. Over the same period however about 100 units were built in developing and emerging economies."

"Greater magnitudes of uncertainty lead to volatility," he said, "and for a capital-intensive sector like ours, this means less investment and more risk to security of supply. This is especially true in power markets that are open to competition: their market design must be adaptive, and long-term contracts used for all types of generation."

The new projections to 2030 see generating capacity declining by some 8% in the low case and increasing by 25% in the high estimate. By 2050, it’s seen falling by 6% in the low scenario and rising by 80% in the high case. Compared with last year, the new estimates to 2050 are down by 33 GW(e) in the high case and up by 15 GW(e) in the low case.

Nuclear reactors are the unsung heroes as we set out to respond to the climate change challenge. The need for nuclear energy has never been greater - there simply is no other energy source which can deliver deep decarbonisation within the necessary timeframes.

The E-Fusion Initiative aims at bringing together the French nuclear supply chain and Emirati companies around projects for the UAE Peaceful Nuclear Energy Programe. The initiative is co-headed by the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and the French Nuclear Industry Association (GIFEN).

EDF and Westinghouse are looking at SMRs as a way of standardizing reactor construction after struggling with years of delay and billions of dollars of cost overruns on their big nuclear reactors, which have capacities upwards of 1,000 MW.

A new small modular reactor (SMR) design has been announced by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), EDF, Naval Group and TechnicAtome. The Nuward - with a capacity of 300-400 MWe - has been jointly developed using France's experience in pressurised water reactors (PWRs).

Emirates Water and Electricity Company (Ewec) has revealed that construction work on the 2,000MW solar plant in Al Dhafra region is under way, with the photovoltaic (PV) power project expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2022 taking Abu Dhabi’s solar capacity to 3,200MW.