Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said a consortium including China's Harbin Electric and Saudi Arabia's Acwa Power has begun construction of the 2,400 megawatt (MW) Hassyan clean coal power station which is being developed on the independent power producer (IPP) procurement model.

The plant will be the first of its kind in the region and is fully compliant with set international standards, adopting the use of ultra-supercritical technology, according to the Dubai utility.

Hassyan clean coal power project, which will have a total coal-fired capacity of 2,400 MW, will be fully-operational by 2023, it stated.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive of Dewa, said the Acwa Power and Harbin Electric consortium was selected as the preferred bidder for the project for its low costs. It bid a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of $4.241 cents per kilowatt (kW), based on May 2015 coal prices.

In June, Dewa and the consortium had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA), in addition to a shareholders’ agreement (SHA) to implement the project to produce electricity using clean coal, based on the IPP model.

The project will be supported by a 25-year PPA with Dewa and the bidder has been required to put in place a secure delivery of coal to the project over the period, said Al Tayer.

Dewa has instructed that the project meets flue gas emission limits more stringently than emission limits in the Industrial Emissions Directive of the European Union and in the International Finance Corporation Guidelines. All the necessary environmental studies have been carried out, he added.-TradeArabia News Service