Dubai cancels waste-to-energy plans

12 June 2012

Waste-to-energy project was tendered three times before being cancelled

Dubai Municipality has cancelled plans to tender a waste-to-energy facility in the emirate. The project has evolved considerably since it was first launched several years ago and several attempts to tender the project have failed.

The municipality unveiled plans to tender the project as a 2,000-3,000 tonne-a-day (t/d) scheme for a third time in February this year. The director of Dubai Municipality’s Waste Management Department, Abdulmajeed Abdulaziz Saifaie, says the project has been permanently cancelled.

In numbers

7,800 tonnes
Domestic waste produced in Dubai each day

$2bn
Cost of an earlier scheme that was cancelled

Source: MEED

The previous attempt was cancelled because of financing issues associated with the $2bn project. The 6,000 t/d facility was to be built on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. Bids were submitted for the second time in November 2011. Two companies submitted bids and Japan’s Hitachi Lenovo was tipped as the favourite for the contract.

The company submitted a proposal for the project, which would see three incinerators constructed at Al-Warsan in Dubai, each with a capacity of 50MW. The waste-to-energy facilities were to process about 6,000 t/d of domestic waste under a 20-year contract.

Hitachi Lenovo proposed a price of 26 fils a kilowatt hour (kWh) for the power produced by the projects in addition to a gate fee for the amount of waste disposed. According to sources close to the deal, the municipality was keen to accept the power price, but would not agree to a gate fee.

The first tender for the project was cancelled because the scope of the project was too open. Bidders were allowed to submit proposals for waste incineration and/or collection and the submissions were to be judged against a complex bid evaluation matrix.

France’s Cabinet Merlin was advising the municipality on the project. According to Saifaie, Dubai is completing its waste management masterplan for the emirate until 2030.

A MEED Subscription...

Subscribe or upgrade your current MEED.com package to support your strategic planning with the MENA region’s best source of business information. Proceed to our online shop below to find out more about the features in each package.