Conference article

Climate change and fossil fuel depletion are the main drivers for the recent focus on finding alternative energy resources. Renewable energy (RE) is an obvious choice to reduce carbon dioxide and other pollutants contributing to global warming. However; the high cost of RE technologies is the main obstacle facing the diffusion of RE power generation; therefore economical and political intervention is inevitable. In the United Arab Emirate (UAE) population and economic growth are the main reason of a fast increase of energy demand; leading to two problems; first the UAE has one of the highest carbon footprint in the world and second; the fast depletion of its main energy generation resource – fossil fuel; which highlights the need to establish a RE sector. In this study; literature reviews are conducted covering 61 countries focusing on their efforts to adopt RE resources in the power generation sector as well as policies implemented by their respective governments and decision makers. Furthermore; we investigated the applicability of the main RE policies implemented worldwide in the Abu Dhabi - the capital of the UAE- context. As a result of our analysis; we recommend to apply a mixed policy of Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) and the Quota system for RE electricity generation in order for the UAE to meet its 7% target by 2020.

Renewable Energy; Renewable Energy Policy; Masdar Initiative