Dubai

United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed the installation of what is being billed as its leading distributed solar project to date, scattered across dozens of locations.

Dubai has narrowly missed out on reclaiming the title of having the world’s cheapest solar photovoltaic (PV) energy, after receiving bids for the latest phase of a massive solar park on the desert outskirts of the city.

The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has confirmed that it fielded a tariff of US$1.6953 cents per kWh in a recent tender for a 900MW plot of its 5GW Mohammed bin Rashid (MbR) solar parks – a bid it claims sets a world record for the indepedent power producer (IPP) model.

The Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) has allegedly attracted the second lowest global solar bid for a 900MW tranche of the 5GW Mohammed Rashid Al-Maktoum (MBR) solar park in Dubai.

The offer was apparently submitted by Saudi energy giant ACWA Power, which refused to confirm the bid when asked by pv magazine. The second lowest bid – $0.0175/kWh – was reportedly submitted by a consortium formed by Emirati developer Masdar, French utility EDF and Chinese PV panel maker JinkoSolar.

The latest 7 MW of net metered solar capacity in Dubai indicates 11 MW were added across ten new arrays in just nine days as the Shams initiative continues to work up a head of steam.

Most of the generation capacity – around 63 MW – was deployed in the emirate over the last 14 months.