Dewa announces preferred bidder for $1.8 billion clean coal plant

Dubai - Construction of the 1,200 megawatt Hassyan plant would early start next year, after commercial, legal and financial issues are finalised.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has selected a consortium including China's Harbin Electric and Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power as the preferred bidder to build and operate a 1,200 megawatt clean coal power plant worth $1.8 billion, its managing director and chief executive officer Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer told a news conference on Tuesday in Dubai.

Harbin Electric and Alstom of France will build the plant while those companies as well as ACWA and US-based NRG Energy will operate it, DEWA said on Tuesday.

It is the first phase of the Hassyan clean coal project. One unit of 600 MW will be operational by March 2020 and another unit of the same size by March 2021, the Dewa chief said.

The consortium bid to provide electricity at a cost of 4.501 US cents per kilowatt hour based on May 2015 coal prices.

Construction of the 1,200 megawatt Hassyan plant would early start next year, after commercial, legal and financial issues are finalised.

"Today, Dewa is adding another initiative to diversify Dubai's energy mix and support the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030 developed by the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy to diversify Dubai's energy mix to include 71 per cent from gas, 15 per cent from solar power, 7 per cent from clean coal, and 7 per cent from nuclear power," Al Tayer told reporters.
 
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