Bahrain’s Electricity & Water Authority (EWA) is planning to appoint a main developer for its 100MW photovoltaic (PV) solar plant by the end of this year.

EWA is scheduled to tender the contract to develop the project in June after receiving proposals for a concept study from 26 companies in April.

“Hopefully we will sign the power purchase agreement in December 2018, and we hope the project will be ready by December 2019,” says Abdulhussain Mirza, Electricity & Water Affairs Minister.

The project is part of Bahrain’s plans for 5 per cent (250MW) of its total power capacity to come from renewable energy sources by 2025. Manama aims to increase installed clean energy capacity to 700MW by 2030 by implementing a number of solar, wind and waste-to-energy projects.

The site identified for the proposed 100MW solar plant is the Askar landfill site in the southern governorate of Bahrain.

Bahrain’s first renewable energy project was commissioned in July 2014. The 5MW distributed PV solar project was developed by state oil company Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) in collaboration with Bahrain’s Oil & Gas Authority (Nogaholding), EWA and the University of Bahrain.

It was built by US-based Petra Solar in partnership with US firm Caspian Renewable Energy. The project saves about 7,200 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year and the electricity generated is distributed by EWA.