Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) is evaluating proposals from 14 companies for the engineering consultancy contract for the planned expansion of the Aweer power station.

The utility received 16 proposals from the 14 bidders on 1 May, with two of the bidders submitting a main and alternative offer.

The lowest main bid of AED13.7m ($3.7m) was submitted by the UK’s Atkins. The second lowest bid of AED14.99m was submitted by the local office of Egypt’s M.H Ali el-Saie Consulting Engineers.

The local/US Velosi Certification Services submitted the third lowest bid of AED16.5m. France’s EDF submitted the fourth lowest price of AED18.8m, with Canada’s WSP next with a price of AED19.8m.

Austrian firm ILF Consulting Engineers submitted the fifth lowest main bid of AED20.4m, in addition to an alternative offer of AED18.4m.

Other bidders and prices were:

• Aecom (US): AED23.3m
• Mott Macdonald: AED24.7m
• Poyry (Finland): AED28.1m
• Tractebel Engineering (Belgium): AED32.5m
• Khatib & Alami (Lebanon): AED36m. Alternative offer of AED32.5m
• Dar Engineering (Saudi Arabia): AED50.8m
• RWE Power (Germany): AED77.1m

The current station has a total capacity of 1,846MW, which was developed over three phases between 1998 and 2009.

Peak power demand growth in Dubai reached 5.5 per cent in 2014, and with consumption set to grow between 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent a year in the run-up to hosting the Expo event in 2020, Dewa is pushing ahead with an ambitious capacity expansion programme.