Dewa shortlists four bids for new $1.3b power plant

Four consortiums are in the reckoning for the contract to build Dubai`s $1.3 billion (Dh4.77 billion) Hassyan power plant, Gulf News has learned.

Saeed Al Tayer, CEO and managing director of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), yesterday announced that bidding is now closed for the project and that the winner of the tender will be announced within a maximum of 60 days.

"We just opened the proposals for estimation and it will take between 45 to 60 day to announce who will win the contract to build the first phase of Hassyan," he said.

Natural gas for fuel

Al Tayer said that the four consortiums have submitted the lowest bids for the independent power project and Dewa is evaluating the best price among all bidders for the sale of electricity generated from Hassyan to Dewa.

The Hassyan 1 IPP is to have a capacity of 1,600 megawatts and will be owned 51 per cent by Dewa and 49 per cent by the winning party.

The plant will form part of the Hassyan power generation complex near Abu Dhabi and use natural gas for fuel. It is due to be commissioned in 2014.

Dewa had earlier announced plans to build a large power and desalination complex at Hassyan comprising six plants in all boasting total capacities of up to 9,000 MW and 720 million gallons per day of desalinated water.

While 18 consortiums had applied for the project, four have made the final shortlist, Al Tayer said.

Mitsui & Co, Suez Tractebel, Acwa Power International and SembCorp Utilities were among companies to submit final bids for the build-own-operate, or BOO, project. Of those, Dow Jones reported, a consortium comprising Abu Dhabi National Energy and Japan`s Marubeni had submitted the lowest bids.

"Under the bids submitted Monday, the consortium has offered the lowest tariff among all bidders for the sale of electricity generated from Hassyan to Dewa," Allan Virtanen, group corporate communications manager at Taqa, said.

SOURCE: Gulf News