Reliable electricity, efficient infrastructure and predictable energy costs are becoming central to the UAE’s ability to attract manufacturers, support industrial expansion and compete for long-term investment, according to energy experts.
As Abu Dhabi prepares for significant growth in electricity demand, officials and industry specialists said competitiveness increasingly depends not only on generating enough power, but on whether that power can be delivered reliably and efficiently as industrial and commercial activity expands.
Sameer Vhora, Energy Lead at Egis in the Middle East, said electricity should be considered part of industrial production itself rather than simply another utility cost.
“For a manufacturer, electricity is not really a utility bill, it is part of the production line, a voltage dip lasting a fraction of a second can trip a petrochemical unit, and a prolonged outage at an aluminium smelter can freeze the potlines and take months to recover from,” Vhora said.
Consistent supply and predictable pricing throughout the year are therefore important both in attracting an industrial base and keeping it viable once companies have invested, he said.
Vhora said the UAE starts from a strong position on electricity reliability, citing Dubai’s record of less than one minute of interruption per customer in 2025, compared with roughly 15 minutes for leading European utilities.
He also pointed out that investors are increasingly looking beyond how frequently outages occur.
“That is resilience, and it comes from a diverse mix of gas, nuclear, and solar, with clean sources now supplying close to half of Abu Dhabi’s power, up from around 1% a decade ago, spare capacity and links to neighboring grids and control systems protected as seriously as the physical assets,” Vhora explained.
Planning networks ahead of demand allows manufacturers to choose locations based on supply-chain considerations such as port access, feedstock and proximity to customers rather than simply where spare capacity is available, he added.
He pointed to the 27-year utilities agreement for TA’ZIZ in Ruwais as a good example of utilities being designed in from day one.
Energy costs also enter investment decisions early, “For aluminium, steel, chemicals, or data centres, power is one of the largest operating costs, and a few fils per kilowatt-hour over a 20-year life can decide whether a project gets built,” he said.
For lighter manufacturing, predictability can matter more than the headline price, while the carbon content of electricity is also becoming increasingly relevant, Vhora noted.
