World’s biggest solar farm will also be the cheapest, with stunning low bid

Abu Dhabi Power Corporation has laid claim, anew, to the “world’s lowest tariff” for solar power, with competitive bids for the 2GW Al Dhafra project setting a price of 1.35 cents in US currency, roughly $A0.02/kWh.

The stunningly low winning bid for the solar tender, launched last July by ADPower subsidiary Emirates Water and Electricity Company, was delivered by a consortium including French energy giant EDF and Chinese solar company JinkoPower.

And it promises to deliver a levelised cost of solar energy at almost half the once record-breaking price achieved three years ago for the mammoth 1.17 GW Noor Abu Dhabi solar park, which started sending power to the grid mid-way through last year.

ADPower said on LinkedIn on Tuesday (UAE time) that EWEC had delivered a virtual read-out of five consortia’s technical and commercial bids for the Abu Dhabi project, which is expected to take the title from Noor as the world’s largest solar power plant.

“The cost-competitive tariff for solar PV energy is set at AED 4.97 fils/kWh (USD 1.35 cents/kWh),” ADPower said.

“This is approximately 44% lower than the tariff set three years ago for #ADPower’s ‘Noor Abu Dhabi’ project, which is Abu Dhabi’s first large-scale solar PV project and a world record tariff-setter at the time.”

Once built, the Al Dhafra solar project will have the capacity to power around 160,000 households across the UAE with electricity and will take Abu Dhabi’s total solar capacity to roughly 3.2GW.

ADPower CEO Jasim Husain Thabet said in a statement that Abu Dhabi had illustrated a “remarkable step-change” in the way the Emirate generated power.

“The water and electricity sector intends to play a critical role in meeting the target of having 50 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s energy needs served from renewable and clean energy sources by 2030, as well as the reduction of the generation system’s average carbon intensity by more than 70 per cent, compared to 2015,” he said.

“The Al Dhafra Solar PV project will play a critical role in delivering these ambitions.”