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EDF eyes 5GW UAE hydropower plant

6 December 2024

Bilateral talks are under way between France’s EDF and Ras Al-Khaimah Municipality for a potential 5GW pumped storage hydropower (PSH) plant in the UAE northern emirate.

A local media report recently cited EDF Middle East chief executive Luc Koechlin as saying the company is in talks with the municipality to set up a 5GW PSH plant, which is likely the biggest in the world. 

The project is envisaged to store energy for up to 12 hours. It is a country-level initiative to balance electricity supply in the UAE, where clean energy plays an increasingly significant role in the energy mix.

“Most of the solar farm development is happening in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, but for the storage and especially pumped storage, you need mountains,” Koechlin said.

He added that connecting the power grids will help effectively manage energy generated from solar, nuclear and large-scale storage systems.

The UAE and GCC region’s first pumped storage hydroelectric power plant in Hatta is 94.15% complete, and generator installations are under way in preparation for a trial operation in the first quarter of 2025, state utility Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) said in November.

The Hatta plant’s upper dam, which includes a 72-metre-high main wall and a 37-metre-high side dam, has also been filled. The plant will have a production capacity of 250MW, a storage capacity of 1,500 megawatt-hours and a lifespan of up to 80 years.

The state utility awarded the contract to build the plant to a consortium of Austrian firms Strabag and Andritz and Turkiye’s Ozkar in August 2019.

Dewa said on 12 November that the AED1.421bn ($387m) project is expected to be fully completed by the end of the second quarter of 2025.

The hydroelectric power plant is designed as an energy storage facility with a turnaround efficiency of 78.9%.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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