A consortium of EDF Renewables and China’s Jinko Power Technology has been awarded the rights to develop the 2GW Al Dhafra solar farm in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The plant will be located 35km south of Abu Dhabi City and will be the largest single-project solar farm in the world when complete, the developers said.
It will deploy bifacial module technology, meaning that both sides of the PV modules capture light to yield higher generation.
Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) launched a call for tenders in June 2019.
EDF Renewables and Jinko Power’s winning bid was for $0.0135 a kilowatt-hour.
The project is being built under a public-private partnership scheme, with EDF Renewables and Jinko Power owning 20% each.
The 60% remaining share will be owned by Taqa and Masdar, two Abu Dhabi-based public-owned companies in the electricity sector.
The partners have signed the 30-year power purchase agreement this week with EWEC.
Construction will start by the end of 2020, with commissioning planned in 2022.
The project will generate over 4000 jobs during the construction phase.
EDF Renewables chief executive Bruno Bensasson: “We are very proud to be awarded the largest solar project in the world at Al Dhafra.
“This success reflects the quality of our competitive bid submitted to EWEC, in partnership with Jinko Power.
“It also contributes to meet the EDF Group’s CAP 2030 strategy, which aims to double its renewable installed energy capacity from 2015 to 2030 worldwide to 50GW.”
Jinko Power International Business president Charles Bai said: “We are very pleased being awarded Al Dhafra project, the new world’s single largest solar power generation project, overtaking Noor Abu Dhabi Project, the current world’s largest single solar power generation project that is sponsored and co-invested by Jinko and our partners.
“This new achievement with our partner EDF represents Jinko Power International’s strong interest and commitment to contribute to Abu Dhabi renewable energy targets.”