DEWA awards contracts worth Dhs 1.2bn for 15 substations

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority has awarded contracts worth Dhs 1.2bn to build 15 substations in the emirate, the utility said in a statement.

All substations have a capacity of 132/11kV and will be built in several locations including Umm Suqeim 3, Naif, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Al Sufouh 2, Dubailand, Za’abeel 2, Nad Al Hamar, Jebel Ali Port, Umm Hurair 2, Al Yalayis and Al Barsha South 1.

The Dubai utilities authority said that it is currently planning 25 substations to meet the emirate’s growing demand for power.

DEWA said it will build three more substations in Dubai World Central, in preparation for Expo 2020. One station will be completed in 2017 while the other two will be finished in 2019, the statement said.

“Additionally, we have completed the final report for awarding contracts for extending 94km of 132kV ground cables at an estimated cost of Dhs 435m. We are also studying and reviewing bids for a project to implement 132/11kV substations over the next four years,” said DEWA’s MD & CEO Saeed Al Tayer.

“In 2015, DEWA commissioned four 132kV substations by extending additional 12.5km of ground cables at a cost of Dhs 430m. This has increased the number of 132kV substations in operation to 205.”

Other projects that DEWA is currently working on include 34 132kV substations in different areas of the emirate, he added.

Earlier this year, Al Tayer revealed that DEWA was planning to invest up to Dhs 60bn in utility projects by 2020. The investment will include increasing DEWA’s power generation capacity by 20 per cent, he said.

Dubai has been seeing a growth of 5 per cent in energy demand year-on-year, officials say. In order to meet such demand, the emirate needs to add some 2,100MW of generating capacity by 2021 to the current 9,700MW, according to DEWA’s estimates.

But the emirate is also looking to deal with the surging power demand through investing in renewable energy.

Dubai’s strategic plan envisages 2.3 per cent of power generation coming from renewables by 2017 and 15 per cent by 2030, as the emirate looked to diversify away from its current energy mix of 99 per cent gas and one per cent diesel.