The United Arab Emirates is one of the countries where SILIKEN, a Spanish renewable energy company, is willing to collaborate with. The photovoltaic solar market in UAE is going to grow significantly in the coming few years. Its excellent radiation conditions – one of the best of the world – and the Arab entrepreneurial spirit allow forecasting a fast market growth boosted by emblematic projects. In addition, UAE is a country that has already started to take advantage of the renewable energy field in its search for a wider range of energy sources and the reduction of CO2 emissions, one of humanity’s forecoming main challenges.

SILIKEN took part in the World Future Energy Summit exhibition at Abu Dhabi (19-21 January 2009) with the strength gained through its own know how, its vertical integration, its great capacity as photovoltaic module’s manufacturer and wide experience in promoting all types of other projects (from large parks to installation on industrial roofs). This company steadiness allows SILIKEN to have a great adaptation capacity for each market, respecting its characteristic and context. SILIKEN aims to unite all these attributes together with the great project development capacity of UAE, its excellent radiation conditions and financial capacity. The results of it would be to diversify the sources of energy, to improve the aesthetic and the efficiency of the buildings, to bring electrical energy to remote areas with no electrical grid, to reinforce the economical zone and to create qualified job through solar photovoltaic energy projects.

SILIKEN has started its activity in June 2001; it was born out of the observation of the environment and of the concern for the current energetic issues. In 2005, SILIKEN Electronics was created, manufacturing inverters DC_AC for grid connected photovoltaic installations. In 2006, the company founds SILIKEN Chemicals, whose activity is refining silicon to the electronical degree, with the aim of supplying the group with the raw material needed for the production of modules.

Currently, SILIKEN is a group of companies dedicated to the development of solutions applicable to the renewable energy field and specialised in solar photovoltaic energy. It has production plants in Valencia, Albacete and Tenerife (Spain), San Diego (USA) with the total surface of more than 45.000m2. Furthermore, the company has branches in France, Germany, USA and Italy and the potential to carry on growing in other markets. Currently, the company is in a national and international expansion process and at the same time gets ready to the vertical integration of the whole solar photovoltaic energy productive process, in order to refine silicon to the electronical degree, produce wafers and photovoltaic cells. The company also makes important efforts to diversify its activity and to widen its range of renewable energy sources. SILIKEN has made the respect for the environment and the sustainable development the most solid mark of its identity.

SILIKEN offers in each engineering project, the best photovoltaic equipment with the guarantee of being its own manufacturer, the installation with the most qualified professionals, the after-sales and the promotion, in other words, the client will only have to trust a single company before they become electric energy producers. Each branch of SILIKEN has their own engineering team, sales and building departments, in order to guarantee a closer relation to their customers.

Just as it happened in all the other countries where SILIKEN is located, the Spanish company enters in UAE with a local philosophy, trying to adapt, in the best possible way, to the characteristics of this country and with the same spirit of overcoming that has made of SILIKEN a company with products and services of high quality, which represents its main added value.

Due to its vertical integration, SILIKEN covers from the production of electronic silicon, which the wafers and cells are made of, until the promotion, the maintenance and the after-sales service of photovoltaic installations, passing through the components manufacturing. It is with these credentials that SILIKEN enters each market, offering to investors, industrial roofs owners and other clients, turn key solutions and the direct promotion of photovoltaic installation, either on the ground or on roofs. This type of projects are an added value for the customer, that just has to trust a single specialised company and created to be an electrical energy producer. The structure of SILIKEN in each branch has its own engineering team, sales department and building, with the aim of establishing a closer relationship with our clients and to offer what we call the "perfect" service.

SILIKEN has a great experience in the promotion of photovoltaic parks. In fact, SILIKEN has supplied 80% of the modules for what is the biggest photovoltaic park in the world – Olmedilla (Cuenca, Spain). Although it is true that these installations (knows colloquially as solar parks) have a higher impact over the ground than on the industrial roofs (where the impact has already taken place), one needs to take into consideration the benefits that comes from this sort of installation: they are normally placed in rural areas, with low agricultural use (the agricultural use is either inexistent or of very low profitability). The impact (only visual, because it does not produce any type of noise or waste) is also relative in this case, because one of the aspects that are taken into consideration at the end of any project’s useful life, is the dismantlement of the installation, its adequate recycling and to bring the ground back to its original use, which does not imply any action other than to remove the installation.

The possibility of placing photovoltaic installations in industrial roofs is one of SILIKEN specialities. It brings added value to the merely structural function, optimizing the utilization of the space and given the opportunity to generate electrical energy in a diversified manner. This particular industrial roof can not, originally, be used for any other productive mean, which makes the opportunity cost equal to zero. Moreover, the photovoltaic installation does not disturb the activity taking place inside the building.

The generation of photovoltaic electric energy does not pollute, in comparison to the generation of non renewable electric energy that releases important quantities of gases and contaminating particles and triggers the greenhouse effect. Moreover, it does not produce noises, vibrations, radiations, reflexes, solid residues, liquids, gaseous… It is a completely innocuous activity. Furthermore, the landscape impact is minimal due to the possibility of architectural integration in buildings and industrial roofs.

Finally, photovoltaic is an extremely simple and reliable technology. It is guaranteed to work for decades with the minimal maintenance as far as time, costs and professional specialisation are concerned.

With over 15,000 attendees attended in 2009, the summit was the largest meeting of influential figures within the renewable energy industry.

The exhibition was extended in 2009 to cover over 20,000 sq metres and will include a series of new feature areas to encourage networking and interaction within this global community. There will also be a range of social events including the Zayed Future Energy Prize ceremony and dinner.