Dubai: Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) will award the tender to develop the first phase of the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) project at Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in the first quarter of 2017, managing director and chief executive Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer said on Tuesday.

The tender will be to develop a 200 megawatt CSP plant with energy storage capacity of between 15 and 20 hours, Al Tayer told reporters at a conference in Dubai.

The Dh50 billion Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park will have 5 gigawatts of capacity once its completed in 2030, including 1,000 megawatts of CSP technology.

Dewa awarded the consultancy tender for the 200 megawatt CSP plan to a KPMG-led consortium in September to set out guidelines for companies bidding on the project. A Masdar-led consortium won in June the third phase tender to develop a 800 megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) plant at the park.

Earlier in June, Al Tayer reportedly said that Dewa would choose the lowest bidder to develop the 200 megawatt CSP plant and that it was targeting bids of around 8 cents per kilowatt hour compared with the current rate of 15 cents.

Al Tayer also said on Tuesday that a “big” PV project would be announced on Wednesday as part of Dewa’s ‘Shams Dubai’ initiative. The initiative encourages customers to install their own solar panels to produce their own power with excess power sold back to Dewa.

He said it is likely to be the single largest Shams Dubai project, however, declined to provide further details ahead of the official announcement.

Dubai is targeting to increase the percentage of renewables in its energy mix to 7 per cent by 2020 and 25 per cent by 2030.