The world’s largest single-site solar park in Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, has received two bids (ACWA Power and Masdar) for phase VI of the 1,800 MW tender launched in September 2022.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) revealed that Masdar submitted the lowest bid of US 1.62154 cents per kilowatt hour. Masdar is a UAE-government-owned renewable energy firm.
“DEWA has broken its own record and achieved the lowest price for PV solar power projects based on the IPP model in Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park,” said DEWA CEO Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer.
DEWA revealed that the announcement for the chosen bidder will be made in the third quarter of this year. The sixth phase of the monumental project is slated to start commercial operations in the fourth quarter of 2024.
In the initial phase of the tender, DEWA had selected 23 bidders. The fifth phase of the 5 GW Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park has a capacity of 900 MW and is currently under construction.
By the end of October last year, the facility boasted of completing the operational capacity of 1.83 GW. This entailed the first phase of 13 MW, the second stage of 200 MW, and the third phase which comprised of 800 MW capacity. This phase has sections of the fourth and fifth parts of the project, currently under development.
The park is expected to have a capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030, following which, the solar park will help offset more than 6.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually.
Dubai is eyeing an ambitious target of meeting all of its power requirements through clean energy sources by 2050. Further, the UAE plans to invest Dh600bn in clean energy projects as part of its Net Zero 2050 strategy. In addition, it is also developing world’s largest solar plant in Abu Dhabi’s Al Dhafra region with a capacity of 2 GW.
