Concentrated Solar Power Project Of Dubai Starts Supplying Electricity To The Power Grid

Shanghai Electric announced that the Concentrated Solar Power’s Trough Unit 1, facility of Phase 4 of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park’s 950-megawatt capacity has been supplying electricity to Dubai’s power grid.

Phase 4’s 700-MW CSP facility consists of three 200MW trough and one 100MW tower unit with molten Salt storage.

“Built on the world-leading tower and leveraging trough solar thermal power generation technologies, the project overcomes the limitation that conventional PV power stations cannot generate electricity at night, making it a demonstration model for the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and efforts to achieve global carbon neutrality,” Shanghai Electric said in a press statement.

According to the statement, Phase 4 was the largest solar thermal project worldwide in terms of investment size and installed capacity.

It also contains 250 MW of photovoltaic solar panels.

CSP highlighted the following in the statement:

• CSP plants use approximately 560,000 tonnes of Molten Salt and 70,000 Heliostats, each measuring around 25 square metres.
• The tallest solar tower in the world, at 262 metres high, can be found on the rooftop of the Solar Tower.
• Once all units have been operational, the energy stored in the tower and trough units can produce power for up to 13.5 hours at night, and up to 15 hours during inclement weather.

Spanish infrastructure company Abengoa announced in January 2022 that it had completed the construction of three solar farms of parabolic collectors at the solar park of Shanghai Electric. According to the company, the contract included the technology, design, and engineering of 6,360 parabolic collectors.

The Phase 4 development of Phase 4 costs $4.29 billion and is being managed by Noor Energy 1. It is 51% owned by Dubai Electricity Water Authority (DEWA), 25% by Saudi ACWA Power, and 24% by the Chinese Silk Road Fund.

Shanghai Electric was given the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Award (EPC), Phase 4 in April 2018.

The Chinese company announced in September 2022 that it had completed the B phase of the 900MW Phase 4 solar park.