Enhancing renewable energy in the Arab States of the Gulf: Constraints & efforts

The development of renewable energy in the Arab States of the Gulf has been relatively low in spite of the large geographical potential for the use of these solutions. This market has been stifled by a combination of constraints, such as the absence of relative legal and policy framework, the high initial capital costs and the lack of commercial skills and information. Even though these states have not been interested in these energy solutions for many years, something seems to have changed recently, due to their accession to the Kyoto Protocol. The government, the private sector and the general public have started realizing the inevitability of putting climate change issues on the top of the list of priorities in the process of economic and social development. Apart from this, some renewable energy investments seem to be more available and effective solutions in the region, because of specified conditions and requirements in remote and isolated areas. The aim of this paper is to analyze in a coherent and integrated way the specific constraints hampering the development of renewable energy, to describe the relative efforts that are connected with the stated role of the renewable energy and to propose some useful recommendations for their future development.