A team led by French utility developer EDF has submitted the lowest bid for the contract to develop Abu Dhabi’s third utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) independent power project (IPP).

The Al-Ajban solar PV IPP will have a design capacity of 1,500MW. 

The team submitted a levelised electricity cost of 5.1921 fils a kilowatt-hour ((kWh) or roughly $c1.413/kWh.

Japan’s Marubeni submitted the second-lowest bid of 5.3577 fils/kWh.

According to industry sources, the companies that submitted proposals for the contract are understood to include:

• EDF (France) / Korea Western Power Company (Kowepo, South Korea): 5.1921 fils/kWh
• Marubeni Corporation (Japan): 5.3577 fils/kWh
• Jera (Japan) / Jinko Power (China): 5.40597 fils/kWh
• Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia): 6.14432 fils/kWh

Emirates Water & Electricity Company (Ewec) requested proposals for the contract in January and received bids in late June.

It qualified 19 companies that could bid for the contract in September last year.

The project, similar to the under-construction 1,584MW Al-Dhafra solar IPP and the operational 935MW Noor Abu Dhabi, supports the UAE Energy Strategy 2050 and the UAE Net-Zero by 2050 strategic initiative.

The Al-Ajban solar IPP scheme is expected to generate enough electricity for approximately 160,000 homes across the UAE and reduce Abu Dhabi’s carbon dioxide emissions by more than 2.4 million metric tonnes annually.

Ewec aims to install 16GW of solar PV capacity by 2036, the firm’s executive director for strategy and planning, Bruce Smith, said in March.

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This implies procuring about 1.5GW of capacity annually over the next 10 years.

Over the intervening period ending in 2030, Ewec envisages having an additional 5GW of solar capacity to reach a total solar installed capacity of 7.3GW by 2030.

The planned capacity aligns with the state utility’s carbon dioxide emissions reduction plan during this period, which includes potentially expanding its nuclear power capacity and deploying carbon capture technologies for its existing thermal power generation assets.

Smith said Ewec expects its first battery energy storage system to come online in the late 2020s to enable optimum use of renewable energy captured during daytime at times when the solar PV fleets do not produce energy.

Ewec aims to reduce its total carbon dioxide emissions from 43 million tonnes a year (t/y) in 2019 to 22 million t/y by 2035.

Image: Noor Abu Dhabi