A joint venture of South Korea's Samsung C&T and the local Trojan has won the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project to build an open-cycle gas turbine (OCGT) power generation plant in Abu Dhabi's Al-Dhafra region.

The Al-Dhafra OCGT project will have a capacity of 1,000MW.

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) will own 100% of the project and undertake the operation and maintenance of the plant.

The build, own and operate contract is estimated to require an investment of about $1.35bn.

Taqa signed a 24-year power-purchase agreement with state utility and offtaker Emirates Water & Electricty Company (Ewec) for the project on 3 April.

MEED previously reported that Italy's Ansaldo Energia will supply gas turbines for the project.

Ewec is working with both Taqa and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) to implement the power plant projects that will support the UAE government’s artificial intelligence (AI) strategy.

In January, Ewec and Masdar announced a project to build a solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage system (bess) project that will enable the round-the-clock supply of 1GW of solar power. It will comprise a 5GW solar PV plant and 19 gigawatt-hour bess plant.

In addition to the round-the-clock and Al-Dhafra OCGT plants, Taqa has also allocated over $2bn for advanced grid infrastructure projects to support the UAE capital's AI strategy.