State utility Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) has agreed with Saudi developer Acwa Power to increase the capacity of the emirate’s first concentrated solar power (CSP) project from 700MW to 950MW.

The additional capacity will come from 250MW of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, which will be developed at a tariff rate of 2.4$cents a kilowatt hour ($c/kWh), one of the lowest tariffs in the world. In a statement released on 3 November, Dewa said the increase in capacity would raise the required investment to $4.4bn from the previously expected $3.8bn.

Acwa Power was awarded the main developer contract for the planned CSP project in September last year. MEED reported in April that China’s Shanghai Electric had won the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for Dubai’s $3.8bn CSP project.

The consortium was awarded the contract for a levelised tariff of 7.3$c/kWh), the lowest unsubsidised tariff for utility-scale CSP in the world.

The project will be commissioned in stages, starting in the fourth quarter of 2020. The plant will feature a combination of tower and parabolic trough technologies, which will collect heat and store it in molten salt to enable the supply of power during the night. The facility will contain the world’s tallest CSP tower, at 260 metres.

The 700MW project will form the fourth phase of Dubai’s Mohammed bin Rashid (MBR) solar park, and will be the first CSP project at the park. The emirate had set a target to produce 1GW of CSP by 2030, but this may be increased in the future due to the significant size of the awarded contract for the fourth phase.