Even before the winners of Abu Dhabi's 2 GW Al-Dhafra Solar Power Project tender are announced, the Emirates Water & Electricity Company (EWEC) is working on its third large scale independent power producer scheme with an estimated solar PV capacity of 1.5 GW. The online version of Power Technology magazine referred to a MEED report to claim EWEC is scouting for a suitable site for the utility scale project.
A subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Power Power Corporation, EWEC is likely to invite firms to bid for consultancy contract for the third IPP PV project (PV3) in the Emirate anytime soon. According to the report, request for proposals (RFP) for the consultancy package could be issued in February 2020.
The first solar IPP project with 1.17 GW capacity, dubbed as Noor Abu Dhabi or Sweihan Solar Project (PV1), and auctioned to a consortium of Marubeni Corporation and JinkoSolar, came online in mid 2019 (see 1.17 GW Sweihan Solar Project Energized).
The second planned solar IPP project (PV2) is the 2 GW Al-Dhafra Solar Power Plant for which 24 local and international firms have submitted proposals. The results are expected in the first quarter of 2020 (see EWEC To Announce 2 GW PV Tender Winner In Q1/2020).
EWEC did not announce the shortlisted companies for the Al-Dhafra project, but the MEED report states five bids were received by the agency on November 21, 2019 from Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power, and France's Engie that have bid individually. The other three bids came in from consortiums of JinkoSolar and EDF, Marubeni and Total, and SoftBank Energy and Eni.
Financial close on the PV 2 project is likely in Q2/2020; commercial operations on site are scheduled to begin by April 2022.
It will be an interesting auction to watch out for since the applicants Total and Marubeni recently won the 800 MW solar PV auction for the Al-Kharsaah PV Plant in Qatar for the 'lowest' solar bid of QAR 0.0571 ($0.01567) per kWh (see Record Low Winning Bid In 800 MW Qatar PV Tender).
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