The Kuwait Authority for Public Partnerships (KAPP) has prequalified seven consortiums to participate in the bidding process for the planned Al-Khiran 1 independent water and power project (IWPP).

KAPP has prequalified the same seven lead developers for the Al-Khiran 1 IWPP as it has for the Al-Zour North 2 IWPP, which MEED reported on 16 August.

In addition to prequalifying groups to participate in the tender, KAPP, in partnership with the Ministry of Electricity & Water (MEW), has increased the planned power capacity of the Al-Khiran IWPP to 1,800MW from the previously planned 1,500MW. The desalination capacity of the plant remains at 125 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD).

The seven prequalified groups are led by the following developers:

The Al-Khiran site will be located on the coast about 100km south of Kuwait City. KAPP and MEW are also planning to develop a second phase, a 1,800MW independent power project (IPP), by 2029 at the Al-Khiran site.

While KAPP and MEW conducted the prequalification process for both the AL-Zour North 2 and Al-Khiran 1 IWPP simultaneously, the clients are expected to stagger the submission dates by six months due to the size of the projects and the fact that the same seven developers have been prequalified for both tenders. The Al-Zour North 2 IWPP is likely to be the first tendered, according to sources close to the IWPP programme.

Progress with both projects stalled as a result of the restructuring of KAPP’s predecessor, the Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB). The restructuring of Kuwait’s PPP body, which happened in parallel with the amendments of the country’s PPP and IWPP laws, was implemented in response to the slow procurement process for the country’s first PPP project, the Al-Zour North 1 IWPP.

In December 2013, the final project agreements for the much delayed Al-Zour North IWPP were signed. The project company set up to develop the IWPP, which is 40 per cent owned by a consortium of the UK/French GDF Suez, Japan’sSumitomo Corporation and local Abdullah Hama al-Sagar & Brothers, awarded South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries(HHI) and France’s Sidem the $1.4bn EPC contract to build the plant.

HHI will build the gas-fired 1,500MW, combined-cycle power plant, while Sidem will build the 107 million gallon-a-day desalination component of the first Al-Zour project.

The country’s IWPP programme is part of the government’s efforts to meet the rapid demand growth for both power and water.

Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity and Water forecasts that peak power demand will climb from 12,800MW in 2013 to 14,000MW in 2015 and to 22,500MW by 2022. To meet the demand and build in a reserve margin of about 10 per cent, the ministry estimates that available conventional power capacity will have to reach 25,500MW by 2022, an 80 per cent growth in capacity.