The Center was officially launched in April 2012 with the following three stakeholders: UAE Directorate of Energy and Climate Change; Dubai Supreme Council of Energy; and Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi. Interest in renewable resources is rapidly increasing in the Middle East with many of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations lately announcing ambitious and defined renewable energy targets, most of which are to come from solar power. One of the main challenges facing developers during the planning and design of solar plants in the UAE and the Gulf region is the lack of accurate solar resource assessment. Most of the existing solar irradiance models, developed in other parts of the world with inherently different climate, have performed poorly in the region due to the characteristic attenuation and scattering of solar irradiance by the frequently present airborne dust. Inaccurate estimation of solar resource can have serious implications on a project’s profitability and economic sustainability. Attracting investments for new solar energy capacity, therefore, requires accurate knowledge of the spatial and temporal distribution of solar resources with detailed and bankable data for specific candidate sites. The Center was conceived to facilitate such comprehensive assessments and address gaps in reliable and available data which will enable investors to evaluate the feasibility of projects realistically and to select the appropriate technology for each investigated site.