Leading ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JinkoSolar has established a consortium with Marubeni Corporation and the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Company to build a 1,177MWp (DC) PV power plant in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
A special purpose company jointly owned by the consortium will construct, operate and maintain the PV plant for the duration of a signed 25-year PPA. The project was said to be located in the Eastern Region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, approximately 120 km east of the city of Abu Dhabi in Sweihan.
JinkoSolar and Marubeni originally submitted a bid for the 1,177MWp solar PV capacity, with a base tariff of just US$0.0242/kWh.
PV Tech understands that the true LCOE in Sweihan was much higher than the base tariff of US$0.0242/kWh. In order to reduce the amount of gas to be imported in summer for power production, ADWEA stipulated that the tariffs quoted would be multiplied by a factor of 1.6 in the months from June to September, which would mean a temporarily elevated tariff of US$0.0387/kWh. Taking this into account, the actual LCOE would be US$0.0294/kWh, which is remarkably close to the low results seen in the Dubai tender from DEWA earlier in 2016 (US$0.0299/kWh).
“Today's important milestone is a highly significant event for both the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and also for the global Solar PV market,” commented H.E Abdullah Ali Musleh Al Ahbabi, Chairman of ADWEA. “Not only will the Project, once constructed, be the world's largest single utility scale solar PV plant, but the price of net electrical energy that we have agreed to today is one of the most competitive prices seen to date in the Solar PV industry.”
“We are excited to be a part of the significant milestone project to co-develop with ADWEC and Marubeni. The execution of the PPA demonstrates our strong technical skills, reliable high-efficiency products and development capabilities,” commented Xiande Li, Chairman of JinkoSolar. “We are proud of making a significant contribution to the development of the solar industry in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.”
Financial agreements for the massive project, the largest expected in the region should close in April 2017, according to JinkoSolar with commercial operation expected to begin in 2019.
JinkoSolar recently guided 2017 PV module shipments to be in the range of 8.5GW and 9.0GW, a potentially astonishing sequential growth rate after reporting 6.65GW of module shipments in 2016, an increase of 47.5% from 4.5GW in 2015.
This article has been updated to include an explanation of the true LCOE of the Sweihan project and the fact that the original bid was for 1,117MW capacity.
