The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, ENEC, on Wednesday announced that its operations and maintenance subsidiary, Nawah Energy Company, in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Transmission and Despatch Company, TRANSCO – a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Energy Company – has safely and successfully connected Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant to the UAE grid, and is despatching its first megawatts of clean electricity to the Nation.
During the process, the generator in Unit 1 was integrated and synchronized with the requirements of the UAE’s national electricity transmission grid.
Unit 1 connection, also referred to as ‘grid synchronisation’, marks the first time that clean electricity produced at the plant is delivered to the UAE national grid. This follows the safe and successful start-up of Unit 1 at the end of July 2020 by Nawah. Since then, the operations team has run a series of tests, steadily increasing the power levels to ultimately generate the first megawatts of baseload electricity produced by the Barakah plant, located in the Al Dhafrah Region of Abu Dhabi.
With clean electricity from peaceful nuclear energy now being delivered to homes and business across the UAE, this milestone is a significant moment in the continued safe, secure, and quality-led delivery of the UAE Peaceful Nuclear Energy Programme and its cornerstone, the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant.
Commenting on the announcement, Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi, Chief Executive Officer of ENEC, said, “The safe and successful connection of Unit 1 to the UAE grid marks the key moment when we begin to deliver on our mission to power the growth of the nation by supplying clean electricity, around the clock. Grid connection of Unit 1 really is the beginning of a new era in our project, which is built upon years of preparation and adherence to the highest international safety and quality standards.
“We are confident in our people and our technology to continue to progress to reach commercial operations, and the completion of the remaining three units, with the goal to power up to 25 percent of the UAE’s electricity needs for at least the next 60 years. This project, in addition to the UAE’s efforts made in implementing other forms of clean power generation, delivers one of the most ambitious clean electricity transformations in the region and the world, setting the Nation on a new track of sustainable development and electrification,” he added.
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