UAE’s First Terrain-Following Solar Tracker
The Emirate of Sarjah's first utility-scale PV power plant, SANA, which means “bright light,” is set among the rich orange contours and deep, saffron curves of the Sajaa dunes. While the backdrop is beautiful, it had the potential to make installation of the project particularly challenging.
Spanning 850,000 square meters (~210 acres) across a demanding landscape, the Al-Sajaa project is marked by steep, uneven terrain. But this desert site was no match for Nextpower’s NX Horizon-XTRTM 1.5, terrain-following trackers, designed to adapt to the land’s natural contours, reduce costs, and eliminate the need for extensive land grading.
The terrain-following technology allowed for the project to be commissioned in a record time of four months following installation and strengthened Nextpower’s partnership with Mustakbal Clean Tech, the EPC contractor for the project.
Set to supply 60 MW of clean energy to the Sharajah National Oli Corporation (SNOC), it is one of the world’s first large-scale oil and gas processing facilities to meet its own electrical needs, while also exporting surplus power to the grid, powering nearly 13,800 homes per year, using on-site solar generation. It will be responsible for advancing SNOC’s decarbonization goal of achieving Net-Zero emissions by 2032 and reinforce the UAE’s Net Zero 2050 strategy, prioritizing renewable energy adoption as a cornerstone of the nation’s long-term vision for sustainability.
