Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (Adwea) has appointed the local office of Austria’s ILF Consulting Engineers as the technical adviser for its first planned independent water project (IWP).

MEED reported in October that Adwea was planning to oversee the development of the emirate’s first IWP and had invited firms to bid for the technical advisory services contract for the proposed scheme. According to sources close to the scheme, the client has now appointed ILF to assist with preparation for the desalination plant, which will be located at Taweelah.

Adwea recently launched the request for interest for the planned 200 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD) desalination facility. The IWP will be located at the existing Taweelah power and water facility, 45km north of Abu Dhabi city. The plant will use reverse osmosis (RO) technology.

The successful developer will form a project company with a 40 per cent equity stake in the new IWP, with Adwea holding the remaining shares.

Developers have until 7 February to submit EOIs to Adwea.

While Abu Dhabi has implemented several independent water and power projects (IWPPs) over the past 20 years, the planned IWP would be the emirate’s first privately financed standalone desalination plant.

Traditionally in the GCC’s utilities sector, desalination capacity, mainly thermal, was coupled with power in cogeneration plants. However, this is now starting to change, with the emergence of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) as a less energy-intensive technology.

The decoupling of desalination from power plants will assist with providing a more efficient supply of water when required, particularly with the significant power capacity due to come online from the under-construction 5.6GW Baraka nuclear power plant in the coming three years.