Al Ajban Solar Contract for the development of Abu Dhabi third utility-scale solar photovoltaic independent power project has been recently awarded by Emirates Water &Electricity Company (Ewec).
A team which is led by the French utility developer company, EDF Renewables, and also includes Korea Western Power Company (Kowepo) from South Korea, won the contract for developing the Al Ajban solar PV independent power project.
Al Ajban Solar Contract
This contract awarded, is the third major contract to be won in the GCC by the French utility developer company (EDF) over the past 12 months. The other two contracts that were won by the French company are: the 500MW Manah 1 Solar Independent Power Project that is located in Oman and the 1.1GW Hinakiyah solar independent power project that is located in Saudi Arabia.
This team that was led by EDF, made a submission of the lowest level electricity cost that was at around 5.1921 kilowatt per hour. This is equivalent to 1.413$ cents/kWh for the Al Ajban solar PV contract.
A Japanese company, Marubeni, made a submission of the second-lowest bid which was at 5.3577 fils/kWh.
The upcoming Al Ajban Solar Contract project is same as the 1,548MW Al Dhafra solar power project, which broke ground in November-and also the Noor Abu Dhabi solar power plant which has a capacity of 935MW and is currently operational. All these projects support the United Arab Emirates Energy Strategy 2050 and also the United Arab Emirates Net-Zero by 2050 strategic initiative.
Goals in Attaining Solar Energy Sustainability through the Project
Emirates Water & Electricity Company has set a target of setting up to 16GW of solar photovoltaic capacity by the time 2036 reaches. This information was revealed by the executive director of the firm who is in charge of strategy and planning in March of the year 2023. For this plan to be successfully executed, it implies that the firm will have to install approximately 1.5GW capacity of solar photovoltaic energy capacity power every year over the next ten years.
By the intervening period that ends in the year 2030, Emirates Water & Electricity Company envisages having another 5GW of solar power capacity so as to attain an installed solar capacity that amounts to 7GW by the year 2030.
According to Smith, the water and electricity company expects its very first battery energy storage system to come online in the period of late 2020s so as to enable maximum use of green energy that will be captured during the day at occasions when the solar photovoltaic fleets fail to produce energy.
Additionally, the United Arab Emirates got to publish its updated national energy strategy in the period of June last year. The update that was published also included the plan of the country which intends to triple its nationwide renewable energy capacity to a capacity of 19 Gigawatts by the year 2030.
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