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• 
  Mass Group and GE Vernova ink Bismaya plant upgrade

  15 October 2024

  Jordan's Mass Group Holding and US-headquartered GE Vernova have signed an eight-year services agreement to support the third phase of Iraq's Bismaya independent power producer (IPP) project.

  Phase 3 of the Bismaya IPP is equipped with four GE Vernova 9F gas turbines.

  According to an official statement, the Phase 3 service agreement was contracted in the second quarter of 2024 and builds on prior operations and maintenance (O&M) and long-term service agreements GE Vernova secured for Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the project.

  The announcement of the new contract coincided with the completion of the upgrade of the project's Phase 1, which entails four 9F.04 gas turbines, as well as the start of upgrades for an additional four 9F.04 gas turbines in Phase 2.

  The comprehensive upgrade works is also known as advanced gas path (AGP).

  According to GE Vernova, the Phase 1 AGP upgrades enhance the plant's performance and operational flexibility, "enhancing efficiency and availability, as well as output by up to 6%, while improving the efficiency of fuel consumption and extending the lifespan of assets".

  With the completion of Phase 2 expected in the first quarter of 2025, the eight 9F turbines are expected to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by up to 477,000 metric tonnes annually for the same level of power production, the company said.

  The phase 1 upgrades at the plant also marked the first live outage in Iraq, a new digital approach that "improves the field execution experience for our teams and our customers", according to Steve Kessinger, vice president and CEO, GE Vernova’s Gas Power Global Services.

  Mass Group Holding owns and operates three other power plants in Iraqi Kurdistan that are equipped with GE's gas turbines. They are located in Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk.

  The four power plants have a total combined capacity of approximately  9,000MW.

  Bismaya IPP

  In June 2020, GE completed O&M works on four 9F.03 gas turbines, two steam turbines and six generators at the Bismaya power plant.

  Iraq’s electricity minister signed a contract with Mass Group Holding and GE to develop the third phase of the Bismaya IPP in September 2019.

  The third phase increased the capacity of the plant by 1.5GW, bringing the total capacity of the plant to 4.5GW. Mass Group Holding will develop the plant under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Electricity Ministry.

  The Bismaya IPP forms part of Iraq’s programme to develop fast-track electricity capacity, with many areas of the country suffering from power shortages, especially during the summer months.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo
• 
  Algeria allocates $3bn for desalination plants

  15 October 2024

  The Algerian Energy Company (AEC) said the state plans to invest $3bn in the second phase of its ambitious water desalination capacity expansion, with six new plants planned by 2030.

  According to a local media report citing AEC chief executive Lotfi Zennadi, the initiative is part of a $5.4bn project to bolster Algeria's ability to "provide drinking water as it faces increasing climate-related challenges".

  The second-phase projects will follow the commissioning of five new desalination plants in 2024 as part of the $2.4bn first phase of the initiative.

  MEED reported in March this year that Algeria plans to procure new seawater desalination plants between 2025 and 2030.

  The plan covers building two desalination plants in Tizi Ouzou and one each in Tlemcen, Mostaganem, Tizi Ouzou Chlef, Jijel and Skikda, Algeria's Hydraulics Minister, Taha Derbal, said at the time.

  Five seawater desalination stations are under construction in Oran, Tipasa, Boumerdes, Bejaia and El-Tarf. They are expected to be completed this year.

  The new plants will raise the amount of drinking water the country can produce from the Mediterranean from 2.2 million cubic metres a day (cm/d) to 3.7 million cm/d.

  Together, the 11 seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants, each capable of producing up to 300,000 m3/day of drinking water, will increase Algeria's desalination capacity to 5.8 million cm/d, providing 60% of the country's drinking water by the end of the decade.

  In February 2023, Riyadh-based water utility developer Wetico won two contracts to develop the El-Tarf and Bejaia seawater desalination plants in Algeria. Each will have a production capacity of 300,000 cubic metres a day.

  Societe Algerienne de Realisation de Projects Industriels (Sarpi) awarded the contract for the El-Tarf desalination plant.

  Entreprise Nationale de Canalisations (Enac) is the client for the Bejaia facility.

  The projects are part of the Algeria Desalination Programme, which is being led by the state-backed Sonatrach Group.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo
• 
  Abu Dhabi receives bids for Al-Khazna solar IPP

  15 October 2024

  Abu Dhabi state utility Emirates Water & Electricity Company (Ewec) has received proposals from companies for a contract to develop the emirate's fourth utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) project.

  The Al-Khazna solar independent power producer (IPP) project, also known as PV4, will have an installed capacity of 1,500MW.

  According to industry sources, utility developers including a team of China's Jinko Power and Japan's Jera, and another team led by France's EDF Renewables, submitted bids for the contract. It is unclear if Engie, also of France, submitted a proposal for the contract.

  MEED understands Ewec has yet to open the bids it received on 14 October.

  The solar IPP project will be located in Khazna, between Abu Dhabi and Al-Ain, and is expected to be commercially operational by 2027.

  Ewec requested proposals for the contract to develop and operate the solar IPP scheme in April and initially set the end of August as the last day for bidders to submit their proposals.

  The state utility prequalified nine companies and consortiums as managing members and another 10 that can bid as consortium members.

  Parties or companies prequalified as managing members are free to bid individually or as part of a consortium. These include:

  • Acwa Power (Saudi Arabia)
  • EDF Renewables (France)
  • International Power (Engie, France)
  • Jera Company (Japan)
  • Jinko Power (China)
  • Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kowepo, South Korea)
  • Marubeni Corporation (Japan)
  • Sumitomo Corporation (Japan)
  • TotalEnergies Renewables (France)

  The following companies can bid as part of a consortium with a managing member: 

  • Al-Jomaih Energy & Water (Jenwa, Saudi Arabia)
  • Avaada Energy (India)
  • Buhur for Investment Company (Saudi Arabia)
  • China Machinery Engineering Corporation (China)
  • China Power Engineering Consulting Group International Engineering Corporation (CPECC, China)
  • Kalyon Enerji Yatrimlari (Turkiye)
  • Korea Western Power Company (Kowepo, South Korea)
  • Orascom Construction (Egypt)
  • PowerChina International Group
  • Spic Huanghe Hydropower Development (Spic, China)

  A transaction advisory team comprising UK-headquartered Ashurst and Alderbrook Finance and Norwegian engineering services firm DNV is advising Ewec on the 1,500MW Al-Khazna IPP scheme.

  Solar energy is integral to achieving Abu Dhabi's target of producing nearly 50% of its electricity from renewable and clean energy sources by 2030.

  In April, Ewec awarded the contract to develop PV3, the 1,500MW Al-Ajban solar IPP, to a team led by EDF Renewables and including South Korea’s Korea Western Power Company (Kowepo).

  A team of Japan's Marubeni and Jinko Power won the contract to develop and operate Abu Dhabi's first utility-scale solar PV project in 2016 in Sweihan, the 934MW Noor Abu Dhabi IPP.

  In 2020, a team comprising EDF Renewables and Jinko Power won the contract to develop the 1,500MW Al-Dhafra solar PV, which was inaugurated last year.

  Like the first three schemes, the Khazna solar PV project will involve the development, financing, construction, operation, maintenance and ownership of the plant and associated infrastructure.

  The successful developer or developer consortium will own up to 40% of the entity, while the Abu Dhabi government will retain the remaining equity.

  The developer will enter into a long-term power-purchase agreement with Ewec.

  Once fully operational, the Khazna solar PV, along with Noor Abu Dhabi, the Al-Dhafra solar PV and Al-Ajban solar PV, will raise Ewec's total installed solar PV capacity to 5.5GW and collectively reduce CO2 emissions by more than 8.2 million metric tonnes a year by 2027. 

  On 1 October, Ewec issued the expressions of interest notice for a contract to develop the emirate's fifth solar PV in Al-Zarraf.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo
• 
  Group expects robust steel demand in 2024

  14 October 2024

  Middle East steel demand is forecast to grow by 4.9% in 2024 to 56.9 million tonnes on the back of strong economic and projects market growth, according to the World Steel Association.

  Speaking at the 17th Arab Steel Summit in Doha on 14 October, Adam Szewczyk, data management head at the World Steel Association, said that the demand growth for finished steel anticipated this year comes on the back of a 4.2% year-on-year rise between 2022 and 2023.

  The trend will continue into 2025 where demand is expected to increase by 3.3% to 58.7 million tonnes.

  Growth in the region far outpaces other parts of the world, which as a whole is projected to see a decline in demand of 0.9% to 1,751 million tonnes this year and growth of only 1.2% in 2025.

  This forecast is attributed to the fall in real estate demand and a sluggish economic performance in China, the largest global market, which continues to impact the market. Higher energy costs and geo-political issues in Europe are also major factors affecting output.

  Overall, the Middle East is one of only four regions globally to exhibit demand growth in 2024 alongside India, other developing Asian economies – excluding China – and sub-Saharan Africa.

  Specifically, finished steel demand in the GCC is forecast at 6.2% this year to reach 24.2 million tonnes and 4.1% in 2025.

  On a country level, Saudi Arabia is exhibiting the strongest growth of the region’s major economies with demand growth of 7% to reach 12.1 million tonnes projected in 2024, rebounding strongly from a fall of 6% in 2023 when the Gaza war, the Red Sea crisis, and weaker global demand deeply impacted the local market’s performance.

  It is a similar story in North Africa, which following a decline of 5.3% in 2023, is expected to surge 6.5% to 18.6 million tonnes this year and 5.3% the next on the back in part of a weaker Egyptian pound helping boost exports.

  MEED data suggests GCC 2025 steel demand could well exceed current forecasts.

  A doubling of annual contract awards to a record $236bn in 2023 is likely to have a major positive impact on steel demand in 2025 and 2026 as this increase in spending flows through into the market over time.

  Projects cashflow in the GCC will hit $177bn in 2024 and $250bn in 2025 according to MEED Projects, up from $110bn and $127bn in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Given that the majority of all steel products output in the region is utilised on construction and energy projects, the rapid ramp-up in capital expenditure by extension is likely to result in an equally significant jump in steel demand.

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  Edward James
• 
  Acwa Power taps artificial intelligence

  14 October 2024

  Riyadh-headquartered utility and green hydrogen developer and investor Acwa Power has topped MEED’s annual power and water developer ranking over the past few years.

  The company’s portfolio, which it values at approximately $94bn, includes 49 thermal and renewable energy power plants and about a dozen water desalination plants.

  These assets can generate 65GW of power and 8 million cubic metres a day of desalinated water.

  Acwa Power continues to bid and win new contracts at home and abroad under Marco Arcelli, who was appointed as the firm’s chief executive shortly after Paddy Padmanathan, the firm’s CEO for 18 years, stepped down in March last year.

  The company has tapped artificial intelligence (AI) and the stacks of technologies behind it to enable its future strategy, notes Thomas Altmann, the company’s executive vice-president for innovation and new technology.

  “At Acwa Power, we are not talking about AI, we are doing it,” says Altmann, who cites that the company has developed an in-house algorithm to enable an augmented AI or human-in-the-loop (HITL) AI application.

  Through this application, a plant operator may receive data or advice from an AI-enabled module that can trigger a response after the data is validated through the operator’s experience.

  “We are focusing on human-in-the-loop, under the umbrella of collective intelligence … this in-house artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm has so far contributed to about 12% cost reduction of chemical dosing in one of our water desalination plants, which encourages us to industrialise this technology and implement it in selected plants,” explains Altmann.

  “I think generally that AI is not stoppable; we’re not using it as a buzzword; we are focusing very much on use cases that make sense and create bottom-line impact.”

  Analytics and machine learning

  Acwa Power has been at the forefront of innovations not just in operating its plants but in winning tenders by proposing the use of new technologies.

  “Over the past decade, we managed to reduce power consumption in our desalination plants by over 80%,” notes Altmann.

  “I recall in 2005 when Acwa Power submitted the first bid, most of the desalination plants that were built during that period were based on thermal water desalination technologies such as MSF.”

  However, things changed when Saudi Arabia tendered the Shuqaiq 2 independent water and power project (IWPP), which, for the first time, did not prescribe a specific technology for the project’s desalination unit. 

  There are a lot of things that typically are not discussed, like having to write new procedures to distinguish tasks that can be done by robots, algorithms and humans

  “This allowed Acwa Power to innovate and deploy for the first time a membrane-based desalination technology at scale in Saudi Arabia. We were the only consortium that offered to build a 100% reverse osmosis plant in combination with a power plant (IWPP). Our bid was successful by offering 17% to 19% lower tariff due to significantly lower energy consumption compared to an MSF plant,” Altmann said.

  Several years later, with the Rabigh 3 independent water project, the offtaker specified a drastically reduced energy consumption. Altmann said they “had to press the reset button, turn every stone and create a paradigm shift in RO design to meet these requirements”.

  At this point, Acwa Power has used the so-called Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) methodology for renewable energy to predict future power generation in solar plants.

  Altmann subsequently introduced a similar Typical Seawater Year (TSY) methodology, which used the previous five years’ worth of seawater data, used big data analytics to understand seawater resources, and designed their plant according to this result.

  “This contributed significantly to our successful bid because we used real data rather than assumed data based on the request for proposals and implemented several design improvements, which resulted in the lowest ever specific energy consumption for RO in the region,” the executive noted.

  Altmann says Acwa Power also introduced the so-called pressure centre in an RO plant in Saudi Arabia, where a high-pressure pump in a desalination plant is not necessarily linked to one reverse osmosis (RO) train. Instead, a pipe connects the pump and the racks, and each pipe can fit any rack. This allows fewer and larger pumps to be used and improves efficiency.

  “Rabigh 3 was a breakthrough, and we continued to further optimise the process, and the results were applied, for example, in Taweelah in Abu Dhabi and Jubail 3A in Saudi Arabia. 

  “We added a solar component to the Taweelah IWP as an innovation and we continued to fine-tune and optimise as we move forward.”

  Altmann also says they were the first to introduce machine learning to reduce chemical costs and predict the optimal time for membrane cleaning in RO desalination plants in the region.

  The goal is to continue innovating into the future, says Altmann, citing their research and development (R&D) centres in leading universities across the GCC, in particular at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, where they operate centres of excellence focusing on water, solar, hydrogen and AI.

  AI and the future of utility jobs

  While a fully autonomous water desalination plant may still be a few years away depending on how fast AI technologies develop, Altmann acknowledges that future plants will have fewer people on the floor.

  This does not necessarily mean large-scale staff displacement since “we keep winning new plants, and we can reassign and retrain or reskill our staff.”

  “As some jobs disappear, new jobs will be created,” adds Altmann. “There are many opportunities to utilise experienced people.”

  

  The executive, however, cautions that AI deployment in a company is not just a matter of installing software codes.

  It requires a change in culture and processes, particularly in HR, where one has to move away from thinking of employees’ positions or jobs but rather their tasks.

  “One needs to distinguish which tasks require a lot of data, and involve routines, and which can be done by an algorithm, versus tasks involving creativity, human interaction or validation against ethical standards or privacy compliance and so on.”

  “There are a lot of things that typically are not discussed, like having to write new procedures to distinguish tasks that robots, algorithms and humans can do,” he continues.

  The executive also cites the paramount importance of the quality of data and the AI readiness of the Internet of Things (IoT) system to enable AI applications.

  “The most important thing, besides ethics and privacy, from a technical perspective, is data. If you want a high-quality prediction or an advisory module, you need to put most of your effort into the data first.

  “Utilising an algorithm … that’s the easy part, the difficult one is to get clean data, eliminate bias, noise and spurious correlations and consider differential shifts in the training of data since AI works differently to a human brain. AI doesn’t have an intuition or awareness to sense biases and is susceptible to providing wrong predictions,” explains Altmann.

  Renewable-powered desalination plants

  Altmann argues that if green hydrogen can be produced using 100% renewable energy, the same can be applied to water production.

  Acwa Power built a 20MW solar PV to complement the grid-sourced electricity supply for the Taweelah IWP in Abu Dhabi because, according to Altmann, the RFP did not disallow it.

  They are looking at doing more of these projects where it makes sense from a sustainability and efficiency point of view.

  “The (Taweelah) RFP did not disallow the installation of a solar PV, and there was an available space, so we went ahead to build an on-site solar PV farm, which allowed us to reduce more expensive energy import from the grid.”

  Altmann asserts that desalinated water can have a zero-carbon footprint by building captive water desalination plants or sourcing clean energy from the grid.

  However, moving to a 100% renewable source will increase the complexity of building desalination plants.

  “There’s a difference from a technical perspective if you take power from the grid, which has certain stability and inertia and is often linked to power plants.

  “You will need to redesign the desalination plants differently, with a different operation strategy and different motors, and to deploy long-duration energy storage due to intermittency of renewable energy,” he concludes.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo