Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) has opened bids for the seventh phase of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Solar Park.

According to a source, technical and financial offers were opened last month. The utility received bids on 1 July.

Phase seven will add 2,000MW from photovoltaic solar panels and include a 1,400MW battery energy storage system (bess) with a six-hour capacity, providing a total storage capacity of 8,400 megawatt-hours.

It is understood that Saudi Arabia’s Acwa, the UAE’s Etihad Water & Electricity and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) are among the companies that submitted bids for the project.

The winning bidder “is likely” to come from one of those three, a source told MEED.

As MEED understands, the previously prequalified Electricite de France did not submit a bid for the project.

Dewa completed the prequalification process for the latest phase of the world’s largest single-site solar park in 2025.

As previously reported, 47 firms submitted their responses to Dewa’s expression of interest request for the contract in March 2025. The main tender was issued last November.

The following companies were among those prequalified to submit main contract bids on the project:

• Acwa (Saudi Arabia) 
• Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar)
• Electricite de France (EDF)
• Etihad Water & Electricity (EtihadWE)
• China Machinery Engineering Corporation
• China Construction Eighth Engineering Division
• Power China
• Larsen & Toubro (India)
• Shanghai Electric Group

The transaction advisory team for the project comprises UK-headquartered Deloitte and US-based CMS and Sargent & Lundy as financial, legal and technical advisers, with Deloitte acting as lead adviser.

Meanwhile, construction on the 1,800MW sixth phase of the MBR Solar Park is nearing completion, with commissioning expected by the end of the third quarter.

Dewa and Masdar reached financial close for the $1.5bn project in 2024. Once completed, the sixth phase will increase the solar park’s total production capacity to 4,660MW.

Dewa increased its flagship solar project’s 2030 installed capacity target by 45% in 2025, from 5,000MW to 7,260MW. This comprises a total investment of AED50bn ($13.6bn).