Abu Dhabi raises its 2035 solar target and adds 15 GW storage
Serguey Asael Shinder1 min readEWEC, the sole procurer and supplier of electricity and water in Abu Dhabi, has raised its solar target for 2035 to more than 35 GW, up from 30 GW, with an interim figure of 14 GW by 2030. It also plans up to 15 GW of energy storage by 2035. Reported by Emiliano Bellini for pv magazine on 23 September 2026 at https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/09/23/abu-dhabi-lifts-2035-solar-target-to-35-gw-sets-15-gw-storage-goal/.
What it means
The storage figure is the one that makes the solar figure mean something. Fifteen gigawatts of storage against thirty-five of solar is a ratio close to one to two - high enough that the plan is not simply more daytime generation but an attempt to move a large share of it into the evening. In a system whose peak is air conditioning, the evening is where the demand actually is.
And an interim target changes how a long-dated one reads. Thirty-five gigawatts by 2035 is the sort of number that can be met entirely in the last three years, on paper. Fourteen by 2030 places about forty per cent of the build inside the current decade, which is a claim the procurer can be held to well before the headline date arrives.
The single-buyer structure is what makes both numbers legible. Where one entity procures all generation, a target is close to a purchase plan: there is no question of whether independent developers will find the market attractive, because the market is the announcement.
⚠️ A target is not a tender. Nothing here reports contracted capacity, and the earlier 30 GW figure being revised upward shows precisely that these numbers are policy settings that move.