The proposed total capacity of Dubai’s Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum solar park by 2030 has been increased to 2,600MW, from the previous 1,000MW target.

The increase will account for the vast majority of the new 15 per cent renewables target by that 2030, which was revealed by Saeed Mohammed al-Tayer, the CEO of Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa), at the recent World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.

While the Dewa CEO revealed at the summit that the renewable energy targets were being increased from 1 per cent to 7 per cent by 2020 and tripled from 5 to 15 per cent in 2030, no indication was given as to where the extra planned capacity was going to come from.

The announcement of the emirate’s revised renewable energy targets followed shortly after Dewa selected a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power to develop the second phase of the solar park as a 200MW independent power project (IPP) and double the capacity of the originally planned 100MW.

The Acwa Power’s tariff price of 5.85 cents a kWh for the 200MW plant is the lowest tariff submitted for a photovoltaic (PV) power plant in the world.

Dewa is planning to tender 500MW of solar PV capacity in 2016 through the IPP model.