World’s largest solar power plant set to operate as Taqa receives UAE's financing

Dubai - Four million solar panels to generate power for 160,000 UAE homes

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) and its partners Masdar, EDF Renewables and JinkoPower, have announced financial closing of the Al Dhafra Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Independent Power Producer (IPP) project.

The project, located approximately 35 km from Abu Dhabi City, will have a capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW) and will supply power to Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC).

Once operational, the Al Dhafra Solar PV IPP will be the world’s largest single-site solar power plant, using approximately 4 million solar panels to generate enough electricity for approximately 160,000 homes across the UAE.

Financing for the project will come from seven international banks, following the signing of the power purchase agreement in July 2020.

Earlier in the year, the competitive bidding for the project led to one of the most competitive tariffs for solar power, set at 4.97 fils/kWh (1.35 US cents/kWh), which upon financial closing, was further improved to 4.85 fils/kWh (1.32 US cents/kWh), primarily driven by hedging and financing cost improvements, in addition to other optimization efforts.

Taqa will own 40 per cent of the Al Dhafra project, while the remaining partners – Masdar, EDF Renewables and JinkoPower – will have a 20 per cent stake each.