Dubai electricity utility Dewa announced on 15 October that it has received a world record low bid of US¢1.6953/kWh for electricity to be provided by the 900MW fifth phase of the MBR Solar Park, which is under development at Seih al Dalal, in the desert 50km south of Dubai city. The new low is the fifth world record low bid to be achieved by a Gulf utility, with Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia setting new lows since Dubai’s previous record of US¢2.99/kWh for phase three of the solar park in June 2016 (see chart).
While Dewa chief executive Saeed al-Tayer says that projects in the MBR park are “of great interest to international developers” there are concerns that such levelized cost of electricity bids do not represent the real cost of development of actual solar projects. Some project agreements have reportedly being revised. Dewa now has 713MW of solar PV operating at MBR, which when completed in 2030 will have total capacity of 5GW (MEES, 11 October). (CONTINUED - 175 WORDS)
