Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) said on Sunday it has invited 18 international developers to build the emirate’s first power plant with private investment.
The 1,500-megawatt power station and water-desalination facility is slated to begin operations in 2015 at Hassyan on Dubai’s border with Abu Dhabi.
DEWA said in a statement that the selection of the developers was mad from a total of 27 who showed their interest in the project.
Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, managing director and CEO of DEWA, said: “The successful bidder (being a developer or forming a consortium) will ultimately own 49 percent of a special purpose company which will be formed to own the Hassyan I Project.
“The balance of 51 percent will be owned directly or indirectly by DEWA. The special purpose company will be incorporated under the applicable laws of the United Arab Emirates.”
The bids are expected to be submitted in October, with the successful bidder set to be named by the end of 2011.
Dubai, the second-largest sheikhdom in the UAE after Abu Dhabi, is seeking to ensure its long-term energy supply by encouraging investment and diversifying sources of electricity to include clean coal, solar and nuclear power.
While the UAE is the fourth-largest crude producer in OPEC, Dubai produces less than four percent of the country’s oil.
Demand for electricity in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes the UAE and Saudi Arabia, is likely to more than double to 230,000 megawatts by 2030, Abdullah al-Shehri, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Electricity and Co-Generation Regulatory Authority, said last month.
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