Bid & Tender

News

Dubai's CSP Project Marks Milestone

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said the concrete base of the solar tower at Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (MBR) Solar Park, the largest single-site concentrated solar power project in the world, has been fully completed.

 

Once built, the 260-m structure will be the tallest solar power tower in the world, said the statement from Dewa.

 

The concrete base contains about 1,300 tonnes of steel rebar and concrete, equivalent to 20 per cent of Paris’s Eiffel Tower, it stated.

 

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and CEO of Dewa, inspected the construction work of Phase Four of the Solar Park, being built on the independent power producer (IPP) model. The project will boast a capacity of 950 MW costing up to Dh15.78 billion ($4.29 billion).

 

Al Tayer was briefed on the progress of construction work by Abdul Hamid Al Muhaidib, the executive managing director of Noor Energy 1, a venture formed through a partnership between Dewa, Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power and China’s Silk Road Fund to build the fourth phase of the park.

 

Al Muhaidib, confirming the completion of the concrete base, said the concrete placed weighs over 19,000 tonnes, equivalent to the weight of 34 full A380s planes’ take-off weight with 555 passengers.

 

Al Muhaidib explained that 33 per cent of the engineering work has been completed for the project, which is proceeding according to plan.

 

This project is the largest single-site solar IPP project in the world that combines CSP and photovoltaic technology.

 

This phase will provide clean energy for 320,000 residences and will reduce 1.6 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually. The project, which will cover an area of 44 square kilometres, achieved several world records.

 

These include the world’s lowest CSP Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCoE), of $7.3 cents per kilowatt-hour and the lowest LCoE for photovoltaic technology of $2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

 

Apart from being the tallest solar tower in the world, it will use 70,000 heliostats, and the largest thermal storage capacity of 15 hours, allowing for energy availability round the clock, said the statement from Dewa.

 

It will generate 5,000 MW by 2030 with investments of up to Dh50 billion ($13.6 billion), it added.

 

According to Dewa, the 13MW photovoltaic first phase became operational in 2013. The 200MW photovoltaic second phase of the solar park was launched in March 2017 while the 200MW first stage of the 800MW photovoltaic third phase became operational in May 2018.

 

The third phase will be completed in 2020, it added.

BACK

Related News