Abdullah Al-Janabi
Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Title: Green Transport Sector for better Environment in Oman
Biography
Biography: Abdullah Al-Janabi
Abstract
The rapid expansion of industrial areas in Oman and the sharp fluctuation in oil prices encourage Oman to increase investment in environmental-friendly renewable energy technologies in order to improve the economy sector to be less dependence on fuel consumption and protect its environment. Nowadays, one the most promising green energy technology is the utilization of the eco-friendly electric vehicles (EVs) which has been strongly penetrate the automotive market especially in Europe, USA and East Asia. However, EVs performance and their environmental effects are still not visible in Gulf region, due to the lack of systematic approach to investigate such technology. The contribution of the transportation sector to the total CO2 emissions in Oman is around 26% which is slightly lower than the contribution of the electric generation sector. It is worth mentioning that the transport sector across the country is rapidly increasing as a result of Oman’s increasing population. A theoretical study in 2009 showed that on each 1000 people 256 vehicles were in operatio, while additional 0.12 million new vehicles were registered during 2010.Despite the fact that EVs have zero emissions, there are indirect generated emissions associated with utilizing electricity for charging the traction battery. By considering 31.8 kWh/100 km as the consumed energy by the EV based on tested representative driving cycle in Oman, the expected emissions associated with using the EVs is found to be 32.976 kg CO2/100 km. However, EVs emissions can be significantly reduced through using the high levels of solar energy in Oman.