Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
As the United Arab Emirates’ fastest growing market, the United Arab Emirates wants to build and consult on nuclear power projects around the world.
Emirates Nuclear Company has become a major player since its establishment in 2009. In less than 12 years and on budget, he completed the four reactors of the Arab world’s first Baraka nuclear power plant. This project was developed in cooperation with Korea Electric Power Corp.
The company, known as ENEC, has built an investment and research and development team to explore opportunities beyond the UAE, CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi told the Financial Times. AI is set to drive a surge in power demand to power data centers.
“We are interested and very interested in all markets,” Al Hammadi said. “We want to capitalize on our success and see what we can do. We are building an entire market outside of the United Arab Emirates, UAE.”
Around a quarter of the UAE’s electricity is generated from nuclear power, and demand for air conditioning drops by up to 60% in winter, Al Hammadi said.
“Who did what we did in the last 10 years?” said Al Hammadi, who also chairs the World Nuclear Association. “I don’t compete with China or South Korea, but if you look west here (in the Middle East), we are the only one.”
ENEC has been discussed to invest in the UK’s Sizewell C project, but Al Hammadi declined to comment on whether the company would proceed.
Britain pushed back its expected final investment decision on Sizewell last year after the next government spending review expected in the spring, but the estimated cost of the project has doubled from less than five years.
Al Hammadi suggested that the United States is seeing the fastest growth in demand for nuclear power due to the boom in AI computing.
“I think we are at the tip of the iceberg, with energy demand growing much faster because the US is leading in AI,” he said. “All the energy available in the United States has been consumed over the past 18 to 19 months. That’s why they’re going after brownfield sites and restarting old (nuclear) units.”
Al Hammadi was asked if he would like to build, own, operate, invest in projects or hire “all of the above” as a consultant. He said ENEC is agnostic about whether it is investing in reviving old reactors, large-scale projects, or small-scale modular reactors.
“We have the institutional knowledge: how to structure deals, how to stitch them together and be a qualified, smart owner, and how to manage these very complex projects, on time. “We know how to deliver on budget,” he said.
He also suggested that the United Arab Emirates could play a role in building nuclear power plants in the Global South. This month, the Gulf state signed a $15 billion contract for renewable projects in the Philippines.
Philippine Energy Minister Rafael Rotilla said in an interview in Abu Dhabi.
