Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) in the UAE signed an agreement with Hammerer Aluminum Industries (HAI) in Austria for the supply of EGA’s CelestiAL solar aluminum. EGA supplies thousands of tonnes of aluminum to HAI each year — a proportion of which will now switch to CelestiAL. In addition, the agreement will ensure that finished profiles made from CelestiAL will return to the UAE, as well as being distributed all over the world.
“This partnership with EGA enables us to contribute to a better future and shows that aluminum has a key role to play in achieving the European Union’s Green Deal ambitions to decarbonize manufacturing,” said Rob van Gils, chief executive officer of HAI. “I am personally excited that many parts of the premium SUVs, which are so popular in the UAE, will be produced by HAI using EGA’s UAE-made CelestiAL solar aluminum. I look forward to driving these vehicles on the UAE’s sand dunes.”
Producing aluminum is energy intensive and generating electricity accounts for some 60% of the global aluminum industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. The use of solar power significantly reduces the emissions associated with aluminum smelting.
In 2021, EGA became the first company in the world to commercially produce aluminum using solar power through a partnership with Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), which operates the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in the desert outside Dubai. DEWA supplies EGA with 560,000 MWh of solar power annually, which enables the smelter to make 40,000 tonnes of aluminum in the first year.
EGA expects to vastly increase its production of CelestiAL through an initiative with Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC, Dubal Holding, and Emirates Water and Electricity Company to divest its electricity generation assets and source power from the grid, including an increasing proportion of clean energy.
“The launch of EGA’s CelestiAL solar aluminum was a landmark in our industry’s drive to net zero,” said Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, chief executive officer of EGA. “We expect to soon be able to increase production of CelestiAL, and meet more of the significant global demand for this innovative, low-carbon metal. We are proud that HAI, and their customers like Mercedes-Benz AG, will use aluminum made with the power of the UAE sun.”