Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) has extended the bid submission date to 30 April for the contract to develop the Hassyan coal independent power project (IPP).

The previous submission date was 26 March. This is the third time the submission date for the 1,200MW coal IPP has been extended, with the original submission date having been set for 26 November 2014. The extension has been granted to allow bidders more time to work on submissions, according to sources close to the scheme.

In September last year, Dewa announced it had invited eight consortiums to bid for the Hassyan IPP. The utility had received 17 prequalification entries in May.

In February, the utility appointed a consortium led by the UK’s EY as adviser for the project. Dubai has set a commissioning date of March 2020 for the first 600MW unit of the coal plant, with the second coming onstream a year later.

Dewa is also pushing ahead with the second phase of its Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum Solar Park as an IPP.

In January, the utility doubled the capacity of the second phase of the solar park to 200MW, and selected a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power to develop the IPP. The project is scheduled to be operational by 2017.