EWEC (Emirates Water and Electricity Company), the Abu Dhabi-based off-taker for water and power projects, announced on Monday that it plans to award the 1,500-megawatt-ac (MWac), Al Ajban Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Independent Power Project (IPP), located in the Abu Dhabi emirate, by the fourth quarter of 2023.

“The awarding announcement and the execution of the Power Purchase Agreement [PPA] are expected to take place by the fourth quarter of 2023,” the state-owned company said in a press statement.

EWEC said it received four proposals for the development of Al Ajban Solar PV IPP, its third single-site solar power project under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model after the 1,200MW Noor Abu Dhabi and 2,000MW Al Dhafra Solar PV IPPs.

The proposals were received from Saudi’s ACWA Power, France’s EDF Renewables, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation, and a consortium consisting of China’s Jinko Power and Japan’s JERA, EWEC said in a press statement.

“Moving forward, the proposals will undergo a detailed technical and commercial evaluation process to select the best proposal,” the statement noted.

EWEC had received 43 Expressions of Interest from potential bidding companies and consortiums, with 19 qualifying for the RFP stage after submitting Statements of Qualification. The Request for Proposals (RFP) was issued on Tuesday, 19 July 2022.

EWEC didn’t disclose details of the bids but the off-taker had received a globally competitive tariff of USD1.32 cents/kWh for its Al Dhafra Solar PV project.

Al Ajban Solar PV IPP will raise the EWEC’s total solar power capacity to approximately 4 gigawatts AC (GWac), while contributing towards the target of increasing Abu Dhabi’s solar power generation capacity to 7.3 GW by 2030 and supplying 60 per cent of the emirate’s total power demand from renewable and clean energy sources by 2035.

(Writing by Senthil Palanisamy; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)