An overview of energy balance compared to sustainable energy in United Arab Emirates

This paper summarized an overview of energy balance and greenhouse gas emissions at UAE in order to prompt renewable and sustainable energy practices. Electricity demand has been increasing dramatically in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the last decade. Electricity production increased 539 TWh each year from 2000 (39.9 TWh) to 2013 (110 TWh), which means an annual increase of more than 13.5%. The electric power consumption has increased 5.14 TWh each year in the same period; which is 133% each year. The electricity consumption per capita is an indicator that places UAE in the group of highest consumption countries worldwide; namely, UAE ranks 10th in 2012 with 10.13 MWh per capita. UAE's population and economic growth are the main causes of a sharp increase in energy demand. On the other hand, UAE ranked 25th worldwide for CO2 emissions. However, UAE is not in the top pollutant countries in the world with respect to CO2 emissions per capita. More specifically, UAE has dropped from the 2nd position in the period 2000-2004 to 8th in 2010 and in year 2013 occupied again 2nd position among the global most pollutant countries. On the other hand, UAE has huge amount of available solar resources; the active and passive use of solar energy could be an approach to reduce even more the fossil energy consumption and the greenhouse gas emissions. It is essential to define the future role of the different sources of energy and to outline the required steps to move into a sustainable future energy system. These may achieve environmentally sustainable power development. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.