Solar park to power expo site

Dewa officials visit facility and are briefed by Shuaa Energy on progress of third phase

Senior officials of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) paid a field visit to the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park yesterday to check its progress.

Once operational, the solar park will provide the World Expo site with 400MW of power. Known as the largest single-site solar park in the world, the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is based on the IPP model, with a planned capacity of 1,000 megawatts by 2020 and 5,000MW by 2030.

The Dh50-billion investment aims to achieve the targets of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 to provide seven per cent of Dubai’s energy from clean sources by 2020, 25 per cent by 2030, and 75 per cent by 2050. It will eventually save approximately 6.5 million tonnes per annum in carbon emissions.

High-profile delegation

Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, managing director and CEO of Dewa, was accompanied by Nasser Lootah, executive vicepresident of Generation; Abdullah Obaidullah, executive vice-president of Water and Civil; Jamal Shaheen Al Hammadi, vice-president of Special Projects; and Mohammad Al Shamsi, vice-president of Water and Civil Projects and Water Maintenance.

Al Tayer was briefed on the progress of the third phase of the solar park by representatives from Shuaa Energy 2, which was established by Dewa with a 60 per cent stake in the company.

The implementation progress of the third phase, which will produce 800MW, will be completed by 2020. The third phase will be completed in three stages over 16 square kilometres. The first 200MW stage is expected to be operational in the first half of 2018.

The 300MW second stage will be operational in 2019, and the third 300MW stage will be completed in the first half of 2020. Dewa registered a Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of 2.99 (US) cents per kilowatt hour (kW/h) for the third phase of the solar park, to be operational in 2020.