The Spain-based multinational firm MECASOLAR, specialising in the design and manufacture of solar trackers, fixed structures for ground- and roof-mounted installations, and foundation screws for large solar PV installations, has supplied a total 1.4MW in structures and solar trackers in the Middle East, a market with a huge potential for the company, which plans to strengthen its position there in 2015.

MECASOLAR reached this figure after signing a new supply contract under which 280kW single-post fixed structures will be delivered to a solar installation from KarmSolarin the Western desert in the Giza Governorate, Egypt. The supply consists of a total 28 single-post systems supporting 2 portrait-oriented modules and 20 rows of landscape-oriented panels.

The fixed structures will consist of concrete footings to which the MECASOLAR structures will be secured with 'transition' pieces requiring welding.

The new supplies from MECASOLAR in Egypt add to the 100kW single-axis trackers delivered to a PV project in Cairo in the past. Also recently, the Spain-based multinational supplied 1MW to a new solar park in Ma'an, in southern Jordan, 218km from Amman, the capital of the country.

MECASOLAR expects to strengthen its presence in the Middle East, where the renewable energy market is expanding at full speed and the prospects for solar energy are quite good. In Egypt, for instance, as in Saudi Arabia, renewables are expected to cover 20% of the total energy demand by 2020. An 8% share would correspond to solar power, in countries with high solar radiation values.

'Based on our experience, knowledge and technology in the solar power industry, we expect MECASOLAR to become one of the leading actors in the development of renewable energy in the Middle East, a market that should expand over the next few years,' company sources said.

If Europe has been MECASOLAR's 'natural' market, at the company they believe this trend will be reversed in the next years, with deliveries mainly beyond European borders.

Company sources added that they hoped new contracts could be announced soon in countries like Saudi Arabia and Morocco.