The cost of a new plant to desalinate seawater using reverse osmosis in Jebel Ali will total around 800 million dirhams ($217.8 million), the head of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) said.

“This project, its cost will be around 800 million dirhams... This project is a leading project because it uses clean energy… and it will decrease the carbon (foot)print,” Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer told reporters on the sidelines of a press conference on innovation and new technologies held in Dubai on Thursday.

DEWA announced in 2016 that it had awarded an international company, which it did not name, a16.3 million dirhams advisory services contract for the new plant, according to the authority’s website. 

The project will use the reverse osmosis technology - a purification process which requires less energy to remove salt from water - to desalinate 40 million gallons of seawater per day by 2020.

The plant is part of DEWA’s plan to increase the use of clean energy in desalinated water production to 41 percent by 2030, compared to 5 percent at present.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) aims to provide 25 percent of its total energy from clean energy by 2030, a percentage it eventually seeks to grow to 75 percent by 2050. 

Al Tayer also said the authority is working to activate its agreement with Dubai’s National Bonds to set up a 2.4 billion dirhams green fund announced at the World Green Economy Summit in October by “either the second or third quarter” of this year.

The fund will be directed to investments in green energy.

(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Anoop Menon and Michael Fahy)

(Yasmine.saleh@thomsonreuters.com)

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