EPC deal signed for $3.8bn Dubai CSP solar project

16 April 2018
China’s Shanghai Electric will build 700MW thermal solar plant

China’s Shanghai electric has signed the contract for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for Dubai’s $3.8bn concentrated solar power (CSP) project.

In September last year, a consortium of Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power and Shanghai Electric was appointed by Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) to develop the 700MW CSP project under the independent power producer (IPP) model. The consortium was awarded the contract for a levelised tariff of 7.3$cents a kilowatt hour ($c/kWh), the lowest unsubsidised tariff for utility-scale CSP solar 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, which is planned to be 260m.

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 solar by 2030, but this may be increased in the future due to the significant size of the awarded contract for the fourth phase.

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