Prequalified developers have started to form consortiums to bid for a contract to develop a wind farm in Abu Dhabi.

In February, Abu Dhabi state offtaker Emirates Water & Electricity Company (Ewec) invited prequalified developers to submit their proposals for the contract.

According to an industry source, Ewec expects to receive bids for the Al-SIla wind independent power project (IPP) by 31 July.

The 140MW Al-Sila wind IPP will have a generation capacity of up to 140MW. When fully operational, it will more than double the existing wind generation capacity in the UAE.

Ewec has prequalified 10 firms as managing partners, which "are free to bid either individually or as part of a consortium with other prequalified bidders". These are:

• Acciona (Spain)
• Alfanar (Saudi Arabia)
• AlJomaih Energy & Water (Saudi Arabia)
• EDF Renewables (France)
• Envision (China)
• International Power (Engie, France)
• Jera (Japan)
• Marubeni (Japan)
• SPIC Huanghe Hydropower Development Company (HHDC, China)
• Sumitomo (Japan)

Ewec prequalified six firms as consortium members, which can bid as part of a consortium with a managing partner listed above.

These are:

• Alghanim International (Kuwait)
• China Energy Overseas Investment Company (China)
• Etihad Water & Electricity (local)
• Ming Yang Smart Energy Group (China)
• Orascom Construction (Egypt)
• PowerChina International Group (China)

The Al-Sila wind project will involve the development, financing, construction, operation, maintenance and ownership of the wind farm and associated infrastructure.

The project will follow Abu Dhabi’s IPP model, where developers enter into a long-term power-purchase agreement with Ewec as the sole procurer of electricity.

Ewec expects the project to generate enough clean electricity to power 36,000 homes, displacing 190,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

It will also directly contribute to Abu Dhabi’s Clean Energy Strategic Target 2035, which calls for 60% of electricity production to be generated from renewable and clean sources.

Together with the existing UAE wind assets, the new project will increase the UAE’s wind generation capacity to approximately 240MW, laying the foundation for further wind energy expansion, according to Ewec’s latest Statement of Future Capacity Requirements report.

In October last year, Ewec and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) signed a power-purchase agreement for several wind power plants in Abu Dhabi and the emirate of Fujairah, with a combined capacity of over 100MW.

Their locations and capacities are:

• Sir Baniyas Island (Abu Dhabi): 45MW
• Delma Island (Abu Dhabi): 27MW
• Al-Sila Abu Dhabi: 27MW
• Al-Halah (Fujairah): 4.5MW

Masdar developed the 103.5MW wind power projects, which use “the latest technology and innovation to capture low wind speeds at utility scale, adopting advances in material science and aerodynamics to make wind power possible in the country”.

The Al-Sila wind farm takes the total number of IPPs that are at various procurement stages in Abu Dhabi to seven. The other schemes are:

• Al-Nouf combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant: 3,300MW
• Taweelah C CCGT plant: 2,500MW
• Madinat Zayed open-cycle gas turbine plant: 1,500MW
• Al-Khazna solar IPP: 1,500MW
• Al-Zarraf solar IPP: 1,500MW
• Battery energy storage system 1: 400MW

These IPPs have a total combined capacity of over 10.7GW.