Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has completed 98 per cent of the M-Station expansion project, one of the leading power generation and water desalination plants in the UAE
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, managing director and CEO of DEWA, made the announcement during his visit to review the progress of the M-Station expansion project.
During the tour, Al Tayer was briefed by representatives from Siemens about the construction, engineering and operational processes of the expansion project, with more than 19.5mn safe man-hours.
Currently, the total capacity of the M-Station is 2,185MW of electricity and 140mn imperial gallons of water per day (MIGD).
The expansion project includes new power generation units, with an added 700MW capacity, to the station?s current total. The expansion project has added two dual-fuel gas turbine generators, two heat-recovery steam boilers and a steam turbine that is 90 per cent fuel efficient. This is expected to increase the plant?s thermal efficiency from 82.4 per cent to 85.8 per cent, which is one of the highest thermal-efficiency rates in the world.
When completed, the project is set to increase the station?s total capacity to 2,885MW. DEWA started testing of the turbines in the M-Station including the initial operation of turbines and power generators as well as their connection to the grid, aiming to ensure the quality and reliability of the units connected to the grid.
After the completion of the initial tests, DEWA will commence testing the pilot operation of the plant. A plan has been devised to conduct these tests to achieve maximum reliability, efficiency and safety. This reduces commissioning costs in three areas such as rationalising fuel consumption, regulating interruptions and reducing the heat rate.
According to DEWA, the combined total cost of the construction and expansion of M-Station is US$3.13bn. M-Station was built at a cost of US$2.76bn and US$1.69bn were invested to generate 2,185MW of electricity from six Siemens F-model gas turbines, six boilers for waste-heat recovery and three steam turbines.
