Saudi Arabian utility developer ACWA Power has finished second in the MEED's annual GCC power developer ranking. ACWA has further closed the gap on France's Engie at the top of MEED's annual ranking, with the Saudi developer winning both of the two private power projects awarded in the past 12 months. The latest two triumphs bring ACWA's total number of independent power projects (IPPs) and independent water and power projects (IWPPs) in the GCC up to 18, just three behind Engie's portfolio of 21. Just one month after the 2017 MEED rankings were published, ACWA Power was awarded the contract to develop Dubai's first concentrated solar power (CSP) project, the fourth phase of the emirate's ambitious Mohammed bin Rashid (MBR) solar park. The 700MW solar array and thermal storage unit will require an investment of about $3.9 billion and will be ACWA Power's second project at the site, with the developer having already commissioned the 200MW second phase in April 2017. In July this year, ACWA Power sold a stake in this project to China's Silk Road Fund, leaving the developer with a 34.3 percent share in the development. The Saudi developer's first success of 2018 was in its home market, when it was awarded the contract to develop the kingdom's first utility-scale renewable energy project in early February. The developer signed a 25-year power-purchase agreement for the 300MW Sakaka photovoltaic independent power project (IPP) for a world-record tariff of 2.34 $cents a kilowatt hour ($c/kWh). The solar project will require an investment of $302 million and will be located at a site in Al-Jouf in the northern part of the kingdom, over an area of 6 square kilometres. ACWA Power will hold a 70 percent equity stake in the project – the first under Saudi Arabia's National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP). In the 2018 ranking, Engie's total equity capacity is only about 27.6 per cent larger than its second-placed rival, down from its 37.3 per cent lead in the 2017 list. According to MEED, ACWA Power's rapid rise is largely due to unprecedented success in 2015 and 2016, when it achieved a strike rate of more than 90 percent of all tenders it participated in, including major renewables projects outside the GCC in Morocco and Jordan. The developer has also shown an aptitude for winning tenders across various technologies, having been awarded the contract for the 2,400MW Hassyan coal project in Dubai, the first major coal-fired plant in the GCC, MEED said.
