Bids were also submitted on 14 May by a developer consortium of Marubeni Corporation and Osaka Gas, both Japanese; and a team of the UK’s International Power and Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation. Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (Adwea) is the client.

Suez’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors are Germany’s Siemens, and Samsung Engineering and Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, both of South Korea.

The Marubeni-led consortium has teamed up with Spain's Iberdrola Ingenieria y Construccion, Japan's Hitachi Zosen and the US’ GE.

International Power has formed a consortium with Sidem and Alstom, both of France.

The preferred bidder is expected to be announced by mid-June and a power and water purchase agreement is due to be signed before the end of July.

When complete, the $2.5bn gas-fired plant will have capacity of 1,600MW of power and 100 million gallons a day of water (MEED 23:4:08).

Adwea also announced plans for its next IWPP, Shuweihat 3. The plant will have a similar capacity to its predecessor. A decision on the feedstock has yet to be taken, but the IWPP is likely to be gas-fired.