Chinese solar panel maker Yingli Green Energy Holding Co is considering taking part in a United Arab Emirates solar energy project as part of its 2014 expansion plans in the Middle East and Africa, a company executive said on Tuesday.

U.S.-listed Yingli, the world's largest solar panel supplier by volume, is looking to grow in emerging markets such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Pakistan and Nigeria among others.

In Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the UAE, the state utility Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) is tendering a 100 megawatt (MW) independent power project (IPP), part of the emirate's plan to diversify its energy mix by 2030.

"It is either we will partner with other companies together and then will submit our bid, or it might be that our strategy is we will support this project with services to the participating companies," Evangelos Lianos, Yingli's executive director Middle East, told Reuters in Dubai.

"DEWA has made it in a very structured way. When we saw that we were happy," he said, adding that the deadline for the tender is July 5.

It is in talks with governments and other partners in the region to deploy large-scale solar installations.

Like the rest of the Middle East, Dubai lags behind Europe and the U.S. in solar energy, but may eventually build up to 1,000 MW of solar power plants as part of plans to get 5 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

Despite vast expanses of empty desert and intense year-round sunshine, solar energy has struggled to take off in the energy-hungry Gulf where heavily subsidised fossil fuel makes green investments less attractive than in countries that subsidise renewables and tax fuels.