Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) has prequalified eight international consortiums to bid for the contract to develop the Hassyan clean-coal independent power project (IPP).

The authority has invited the eight groups to submit proposals by 26 November for the 1,200MW IPP. Dewa had received 17 prequalification entries in May.

In February, Dewa appointed a consortium led by the UK’s EY as adviser for the project. Dubai has set a commissioning date of 2020 for the coal plant.

Dewa is also pushing ahead with the 100MW second phase of its Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum Solar Park as an IPP. The utility has prequalified 24 firms for the tender, and has set a bid submission date of 23 October.

The Netherlands’ KPMG has been appointed as financial adviser and the UK’s Norton Rose Fulbright has been chosen as legal adviser for the planned solar project, which will utilise photovoltaic (PV) technology. The scheme is scheduled to be fully operational in 2017.

While the current installed capacity of 9,700MW in Dubai was easily able to cope with the 6,500MW peak power demand recorded in the emirate in 2013, Dewa is pressing ahead with plans to boost capacity as demand is expected to grow by between 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent a year up to the opening of the World Expo event in 2020.

In addition to the two IPPs, Dewa is planning to expand the capacity of its 2,030MW M Station power facility at Jebel Ali by 600MW. The utility has set a bid submission date of 15 October and is planning to award the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by the end of 2014.