As energy use soars globally, driven in part by the rise of data centers for artificial intelligence, Takaa Generation’s chief executive officer said the UAE’s power companies are up to the task of meeting demand.
Farid Al Awlaki made the comments during a moderated panel discussion. The National Thursday at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
“There is a massive global surge and we are extremely well-positioned to deal with it,” the CEO said in a session titled “Power is Knowledge – AI and Energy.”
Taqa Generation is the energy production arm of Taqa, also known as Abu Dhabi National Energy Company.
The company operates energy facilities in the United Arab Emirates and around the world. Al Awlaki has a unique perspective on the changes that have affected Takaa and the energy sector as a whole.
He took over as CEO in 2020, before AI dominated headlines and when sustainability, decarbonization, net zero and climate goals were the main focus.
Some worry that sustainability is getting lost in the shuffle as the unprecedented AI boom and other factors cause a sharp increase in electricity demand, but Al-Awlaki said that was a false dichotomy.
“Some say it’s all about energy for AI, but it’s actually AI for energy,” he said, noting that many energy experts and even critics of the AI boom agree that the technology is helping utilities and energy producers find previously untapped ways to be more efficient.
“For us, AI helps us discover more energy from the energy we produce,” he said.
Taqa is collaborating with Abu Dhabi’s clean energy company, Masdar, to harness not only gas but also renewable energy, while leveraging AI to improve efficiency and, in turn, prioritize sustainability.
“At some point when everyone was talking about renewable energy, gas and thermal power were considered obsolete,” he said.
“But what we found is that they are closely related and you can’t deploy one without the other.” Gas is useful as a quick and inactive power source because it can compensate for the intermittency of renewable energy, he added.
“That’s where AI comes in and helps balance everything,” he said. He added that this is only the early stages of discovering efficiencies that AI can assist with.
The share of renewable energy in Taqa’s portfolio has increased from 5% a few years ago to 60% today. “That is why we are targeting our sustainability responsibilities and meeting our huge energy needs,” Al-Awlaki said.
He added that Taqa’s global footprint gives the company a competitive advantage in keeping the lights on around the world.
“We take full advantage of our global footprint and purchasing power, as well as our special relationships with all of our suppliers,” he said. “We can come up with a power plant on paper and produce it in about two years.”
So far, this strategy seems to be working. Al-Awlaki said the energy company’s production capacity, which hovered around 20 gigawatts in 2020, has since increased to 72 gigawatts.
“And today we have an obligation to have 150GW by 2030,” he said, stressing that both renewable energy and gas will be used as power sources.
