First Solar Inc. has signed an agreement to supply its photovoltaic modules to power the 200 MW second phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Earlier this year, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority selected a consortium led by Saudi Arabia-based power and water developer ACWA Power and Spain-based engineering and construction firm TSK to develop, construct, own and operate the independent power project. According to the consortium, the project's tariff is $0.0584/kWh, a new international low.
The project's second phase will feature over 2.36 million First Solar modules. By comparison, the 13 MW first phase of the project used 152,880 modules. When completed in 2017, the full plant will cover nearly 4.5 million square-meters.
‘This project's impact on the global energy transition cannot be overstated,’ says Alfonso Targhetta, procurement managing director of TSK. ‘It has effectively driven down the cost of solar electricity, marking a new milestone in solar PV's evolution as a mainstream energy resource.’
