Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) and Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT) announced on Friday the financial close of Phase 2 of road lighting LED public-private partnership (PPP) project located in the UAE capital.

A French consortium of EDF and ENGIE was selected in December 2022 to deliver second phase after a three-stage evaluation of the proposals submitted by pre-qualified bidders from nine countries.

EDF and ENGIE have formed Nojoom, a 50-50 joint venture to deliver the project, which involves the finance, supply, installation, operation and maintenance of 133,473 LED energy-efficient road lights, state news agency WAM reported on Friday.

The project is structured as design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) contract with a concession period of 12 years.

It has been split into five phases covering smaller geographical zones, and is expected to achieve an estimated 74 percent reduction in power consumption over the concession period. 

The WAM statement didn’t disclose additional details about the financing of the project in terms of financial institutions involved and the total debt raised.

The first phase of the road lighting PPP project for 43,000 LED energy-efficient luminaries was awarded in March 2020 to UAE-based Tatweer for Traffic Assets & Systems Operation and Management under a 12-year DBFOM concession.

In January 2023, ADIO, in collaboration with Khalifa University, launched a major new PPP tender to deliver accommodation and associated facilities for 3,250 students in the UAE capital.

In May 2022, ADIO and Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge (ADEK) awarded the contract for the Zayed City Schools PPP project to a consortium of BESIX and Plenary Group. The financial close was achieved in July 2022.

Read more: Abu Dhabi invites expressions of interest for two infrastructure PPP projects

(Writing by Senthil Palanisami; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)