How falling battery costs are igniting race for round-the-clock solar power
- UAE’s Round-The-Clock project aims to deliver 1 GW of power 24/7 using solar and batteries
- The project combines 5.2 GW of solar capacity with 19 GWh of battery storage from CATL
- Chile curtailed 19% of solar and wind in 2024, as grids couldn’t absorb peak generation
- Globally around 180 GWh of battery storage capacity was added in 2024, nearly double 2023.
- Dispatchable solar can be delivered at $76 per megawatt hour outside US and China
March 9 – Outside Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, a vast area of desert is being carpeted with solar panels.
While this sight is more and more familiar around the world, the Round-The-Clock project, developed by Emirati company Masdar, is on a different scale. By combining the solar array with a massive amount of battery capacity, the aim is to store enough power generated during daylight hours so that a minimum of 1 GW of electricity – enough to power between 500,000 and one million homes – is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
This will help to address one of the critical flaws with solar power – its intermittency. What is the point of pouring billions of dollars into solar farms, critics have often asked, when they are unable to deliver power when the sun is not shining?
The RTC project aims to answer this question by proving it is feasible to store enough electricity to guarantee a constant supply.
Dr Ibraheem Almansouri, director of engineering at Masdar, says:
This was the idea and the concept behind the RTC,
“How we can ensure that we can provide baseload power supply, day and night, throughout the full year, for the useful life of the project?”
Almansouri, who spoke with The Ethical Corporation at the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) assembly in January, describes the fall in battery storage costs as “one of the elements” that have made the RTC project viable. Improvements in battery life as well as the efficiency of the technology, are also important, he adds.
While the UAE is one of the sunniest corners of the Earth, even this desert country occasionally experiences less favourable conditions. In 2024, for example, storms brought dramatic flooding. Almansouri says the RTC Project will be able to cope even in these rare periods of bad weather because it has been “over-designed a little bit”. The 1 GW of round-the-clock power is achieved through 5.2 GW of solar generating capacity, and 19 GWh (gigawatt hours) of battery storage, supplied by Chinese battery giant CATL.
Almansouri says the RTC project, which is due to become operational next year, will provide a “blueprint” for similar schemes around the world. Masdar signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a 1 GW baseload clean energy project in Uzbekistan in January 2026, having signed a similar deal with Kazakhstan in May 2025.
Masdar is perhaps the most ambitious renewable energy developer in seeking to use batteries to create baseload renewable power. But globally, battery storage is playing a bigger and bigger role in the energy transition.
On the other side of the world, Chile is looking to scale battery storage. The South American country has 9 GW of storage capacity in operation, construction or testing, with a further 27 GW in the development pipeline, according to the industry association ACERA.
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How falling battery costs are igniting race for round-the-clock solar power, source
