Solar park’s phase 3 work to begin this month

Construction of the 800 megawatt phase 3 of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai will start at the end of this month following the award of the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the project. This was announced on at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017.

A Masdar-led consortium was selected last June by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) to develop what will be the world’s largest solar park on a single plot on completion, after setting a record low bid price for solar power generation of US cents 2.99 per kilowatt-hour, kWh.

Construction of the 16 square-kilometre Phase 3 expansion of the Dubai Solar Park will occur in three stages. The first 200MW stage is expected to be completed by the first half of 2018 and the next 300MW phase is due the following year, with the final 300MW tranche to come on stream in the first half of 2020.

Tuesday’s announcement is the latest major milestone for the project, and follows the signing of a power purchasing agreement in November 2016 by Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Chairman of Masdar, and Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Dewa. Under the agreement, both Masdar and Dewa will form a joint venture, Shua’a 2, to lead the construction of Phase 3’s next stage of the project. “The directives of His Highnesses Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai are the roadmap that guides our ambitious initiatives and development projects. The agreement also supports the Dubai Plan 2021 to promote sustainability and happiness in Dubai... and Dewa’s vision to become a sustainable innovative world-class utility,” said Al Tayer.