Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has completed 82 per cent of the M-Station expansion project, the newest and largest electricity generation and water desalination plant in the UAE.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of Dewa, was briefed by Siemens’ representatives on the construction, engineering, and operational progress of the expansion project, which is going according to schedule. To date, most of the civil work has been done, and 10.9 million safe man-hours recorded without any injuries.

M-Station is the largest electricity generation and water desalination plant in the UAE, with a current total capacity of 2,185 MW of electricity and 140 million gallons of desalinated water per day (MIGD). The station adopts the highest levels of availability, reliability, and efficiency, using the most advanced technologies in the world. The station’s total capacity will reach 2,885 MW when the expansion project is completed in Q3 of 2018.

The station includes the provision of new power generating units, adding 700 MW to the installed generation capacity of M-Station. The expansion project includes the addition of two dual-fuel gas turbine generators, two heat-recovery steam boilers, and a steam turbine that is 90 per cent fuel-efficient. This will 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.

Since 2015, Dewa has been working with Siemens on the Jebel Ali M-Station expansion. With the combined total cost of construction and expansion being Dh11.5 billion ($3.1 billion), M-Station is equipped with the latest smart devices and sophisticated heavy-duty technological systems. It was built at a cost of Dh10.15 billion. Dh6.2 billion were invested to generate 2,185 MW of electricity from six gas turbines (F-model) from Siemens, with a capacity of 255 MW for each unit, six boilers for waste-heat recovery and three steam turbines, with a capacity of 218 MW each.

The project has been implemented in phases since mid-2010. Water desalination systems costing Dh3.95 billion use eight desalination units, deploying Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) distillation technology, each with a capacity of 17.5 MIGD and totalling 140 MIGD, two dual-fuel-fired auxiliary boilers of 390 tonnes per hour, and 16 fuel-oil storage tanks, each with a capacity of 20,000 cu m, with total fuel-oil storage of 320,000 cu m.

Dewa works tirelessly to build a robust infrastructure to enhance its total production capacity, which is currently 10,200 MW of electricity and 470 MIGD. – TradeArabia News Service