Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) today (October 12) announced that it has received three proposals (from leading Spanish infrastructure groups Acciona and GS Inma and French multinational utility major Engie) for the development of its new Shuweihat 4 Reverse Osmosis (S4 RO) independent water project.
Following this, Ewec said it will now move forward with the evaluation process.
According to Ewec, the S4 RO project will use low-carbon intensive RO technology to desalinate seawater and supply up to 70 million imperial gallons per day (MIGD), thus enhancing the security of water supply in Abu Dhabi's Al Dhafra region.
The plant will also be instrumental in ensuring an optimised and efficient water supply by procuring competitive RO technology.
CEO Othman Al Ali said EWEC is accelerating the decoupling of water and power generation capacity with the adoption of state-of-the-art reverse osmosis technology, supporting its strategic goal to reduce the system's carbon footprint.
"The S4 RO water desalination project will play a key role in ensuring both security of water supply and reducing CO2 emissions, actively supporting the UAE Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative. We are pleased to have received competitive bids for the project and will now move forward with our evaluation process," he stated.
The Expression of Interest (EOI) stage took place in October last year following which Ewec received a total of 35 EoI from potential bidders for the project.
Then Request for Proposal was issued to bidders that had passed the qualification process in March, with 18 being qualified to bid for the project after submitting their qualification bids.
Following the submissions, the proposals will undergo a detailed technical and commercial evaluation process to select the best proposal, it stated.
Ewec said the winning bidder is likely to be announced in Q1 2023 after which the Water Purchase Agreement will be signed with the developer. The S4 RO project has a target commercial operations date of Q3 2025, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
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