Bahrain’s Electricity & Water Authority (EWA) has received three proposals for the contract to provide consultancy services for its planned 100MW photovoltaic (PV) solar plant.

The lowest bid of BD354,253 ($939,029) was submitted by Canada’s SNC Lavalin. Their price was almost 30 per cent lower than the BD501,303 proposal submitted by the second lowest bidder, the local office of Ireland’s ESB International. UK-based Mott Macdonald submitted the third lowest bid of BD705,947.

The bids were received on 28 September.

MEED recently reported that Bahrain was planning to develop a 100MW PV plant in partnership with the private sector as part of its National Renewable Energy Action Plan.

The 100MW solar project is planned to be tendered to developers in February 2018 and scheduled for completion in 2019, according to a memorandum from the Minister of Electricity & Water Affairs.

Bahrain is planning for 5 per cent of its electricity to be produced from renewable energy sources by 2025.

Bahrain’s first renewable energy project was commissioned in July 2014. The 5MW distributed photovoltaic (PV) solar project was developed by state oil company Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) in collaboration with Bahrain’s Oil & Gas Authority (Nogaholding), EWA and the University of Bahrain. It was built by the US-based Petra Solar, in partnership with the US’ Caspian Renewable Energy. The project saves about 7,200 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions and the electricity generated is delivered to EWA for distribution.