07 September 2026
Keynote on why most announced solar projects never reach construction doubles as a statement of intent from a Dubai-based manufacturer determined to be part of the 13 percent that gets built.
At Dubai World Trade Centre this week, as part of Middle East Energy Summit 2026, Intersolar Middle East brought together developers, financiers and manufacturers from across the region for three days focused on the next phase of the solar build-out. ZAKH Renewable Energy, the UAE-based renewable energy group behind FAERS-branded solar panels and building-integrated photovoltaics, was invited by the Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA) to speak on the event’s conference stage, where COO Marina Strateva delivered a keynote that set the company apart from the exhibition-hall optimism typically on display at industry events.
Titled “Hype vs. Financial Close,” the address opened not with a sales pitch but with an uncomfortable industry statistic: of every gigawatt of solar capacity formally proposed worldwide, only 13 to 20 percent ever reaches commercial operation. The rest stalls in grid queues, loses financing or is quietly withdrawn years after the press release that announced it. It was a bold choice of topic to bring to an industry stage – and a deliberate one for ZAKH and FAERS.
“The market doesn’t need another announcement,” the company argued to delegates. “It needs partners who can actually get a project from paper to power.”
That distinction is central to how ZAKH Renewable Energy positions itself in a crowded regional market. Headquartered at Emaar Square in Dubai, with manufacturing operations based at RAKEZ Free Zone in Ras Al Khaimah, ZAKH is DEWA-approved for both manufacturing and solar panel supply – a credential few regional manufacturers hold and one that speaks directly to the “bankability” theme at the centre of the FAERS/ZAKH presentation.
Its FAERS product range spans high-efficiency TOPCon bifacial modules of up to 740W, with efficiencies approaching 24 percent, through to fully custom building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) and façade systems designed for architects and developers who need solar that performs as both energy infrastructure and building material.
Current manufacturing capacity stands at 600 MW of solar panels and roughly 500,000 square metres of BIPV annually, with expansion already mapped through to 1.8 GW by 2029-30. This growth is designed to meet demand not only across the UAE and wider GCC, but also in markets spanning Africa, Europe, the United States and Australia.
ZAKH used the invited platform to argue that this kind of manufacturing credibility and regulatory approval is exactly what the wider industry is short of. Citing data from the only market in the world with a complete multi-year project-tracking record – U.S. grid interconnection queues – the company showed that three-quarters of proposed solar capacity is withdrawn before ever being built, and that even projects with signed grid agreements fail at a rate of four in ten.
In Africa, FAERS/ZAKH noted, the region’s announced solar pipeline outweighs what is actually operating by sixteen to one. The company’s diagnosis is that the industry’s problem isn’t demand, sunlight or land. Global solar still needs to more than double by 2030 to meet its own climate pathway. Instead, the challenge is the absence of enforced, non-negotiable standards defining what a “bankable” project actually requires before ground is broken.
It is a standard that ZAKH argued already exists in principle. Free, IRENA-backed model contracts have sat largely unused for seven years but have never been made compulsory. Where procurement bodies have made equivalent documentation non-negotiable, as in South Africa’s REIPPPP programme, conversion rates from tender to construction have reached 99 percent, compared with roughly 15 percent where the same paperwork remains optional.
The company’s call to the room was clear: procuring authorities, financiers and developers alike should publish their own project conversion rates and treat readiness – including land title, grid-cost estimates, measured irradiance data and named offtaker credit – as a gate, not a checklist.
For ZAKH Renewable Energy, the invitation to speak – rather than simply exhibit – reinforces a positioning the company has been building steadily since establishing UAE operations: not simply a panel supplier competing on price, but a DEWA-approved manufacturer with the certifications, in-region production base and technical depth to be a genuine execution partner for developers, EPCs and utilities across the Middle East, Africa and beyond.
That the industry’s own trade body chose ZAKH’s COO, Marina Strateva, to deliver this diagnosis to the room speaks to the credibility the company has built in the region – at a moment when, as ZAKH’s own data made clear, execution is precisely what the market is short of.
ZAKH Renewable Energy is a UAE-based renewable energy and solar manufacturing group, with consumer brand FAERS producing TOPCon bifacial solar panels and custom BIPV/façade systems from its DEWA-approved facility in Ras Al Khaimah.
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