Kuwait’s first independent water and power project (IWPP), Al-Zour North 1, is set to reach commercial operation in November 2016.

Speaking at MEED’s Kuwait Projects 2015 conference in Kuwait City on 24 November, Andy Biffen, CEO of Shamal al-Zour al-Oula, said that construction of the plant was running ahead of schedule.

“Early power from the plant began in June this year, after just 18.5 months since construction work started,” said Biffin. “The plant is currently producing about 780MW of power, and we expect full commercial operation of power and water components in November 2016. Construction work is running about 6 per cent ahead of schedule.”

Shamal al-Zour al-Oula is the project company set up to develop the IWPP, which is 40 per cent owned by a consortium of the UK/French GDF Suez, Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation and local Abdullah Hama al-Sagar & Brothers, awarded South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and France’s Sidem the $1.4bn EPC contract to build the plant.

HHI is building the gas-fired 1,500MW, combined-cycle power plant, while Sidem is building the 107 million gallon-a-day desalination component of the first Al-Zour project.

While Al-Zour 1 IWPP reaches the final stages of construction, the Kuwait Authority for Partnership Projects (KAPP) is pushing ahead with tendering the second phase, Al-Zour North 2 IWPP.

KAPP has set a submission date of 17 January 2016 for firms to submit bids for the IPP.

MEED reported in August that seven groups had been prequalified to participate in the tender.