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Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) announced on Tuesday that it received a world record bid of $1.69 US cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for its 900 megawatt (MW) fifth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park.
Phase 5, which would be based on the same Independent Power Producer (IPP) model as Phases 2 to 4, will use solar photovoltaic (PV) technology and commence operations in stages from the second quarter of 2021, the utility said in a press statement.
It quoted the MD and CEO Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer as saying that DEWA has achieved, for the fifth time, a world record in getting the lowest price for solar PV power projects based on the IPP model.
Waleed Salman, DEWA’s Executive Vice President of Business Development & Excellence pointed out in the statement that the utility had received 60 bids in response to the Request for Qualification (RFQ) tender issued in February 2019. Nine consortiums and companies were pre-qualified and invited to send their bids.
Salman added that the winning bid would be announced in November.
Based on information available on DEWA’s website, the Dubai utility received its first record-breaking tariff for solar power in January 2015 with $5.6 cents per kWh for the solar PV-based 200 MW Phase 2 of the solar park. This was followed by $2.99 cents per kWh for the Phase 3, also based on PV technology, in June 2016, and tariffs of $7.3 cents per kWh for the 700 MW concentrated solar power (CSP) portion and $2.4 cents per kWh for the 250 MW PV portion of the 950 MW Phase 4 in September 2017.
Al Tayer noted that Dubai needs 42,000 MW of clean and renewable energy to achieve the 2050 goal of generating 75 percent of the emirate’s total power output from clean energy under Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050.
“Current total production capacity at the solar park is 713 MW. DEWA is building three other projects with a total capacity of 1,250 MW. The 900 MW 5th phase will increase the production capacity [of the solar park] to 2,863 MW,” he explained.
Dubai’s Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is billed as the world’s largest single-site renewable energy project with a target of 5,000 MW of total capacity by 2030 with investments worth 50 billion UAE dirhams ($13.6 billion).
(Writing by Anoop Menon; Editing by Mily Chakrabarty)
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