Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) and Dubal (dubai Aluminium) Holding are planning to acquire the UAE power generation assets of Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), with Taqa and Dubal to each hold a 50 per cent share.

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) and Dubal (dubai Aluminium) Holding are planning to acquire the UAE power generation assets of Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), with Taqa and Dubal to each hold a 50 per cent share.

The generated power from the assets would be supplier to the grid through a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA), with despatch of the assets through Emirates Water & Electricity Company’s (Ewec’s) load despatch centre.

 The EGA generation assets, located in Jebel Ali in Dubai and Al-Taweelah in Abu Dhabi, have a total power generation capacity of 6,474MW – predominantly combined-cycle gas turbines.

Abu Dhabi Transmission & Despatch Company (Transco), a fully owned Taqa company, would connect the power assets to the grid in addition to investing in developing the interonnections to upgrade the network to include new substations and strenghtening connectivity in the UAE.

 The connection of EGA to the grid will assist with the UAE’s ambitious net-zero target by 2050.

For TAQA, the acquisition of EGA’s power assets would increase the company’s UAE-based capacity to more than 23 gigawatts, in line with TAQA’s growth strategy to increase domestic capacity to 30 gigawatts by 2030. 

Energy & Utilities reported in January 2021 that utility Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (Dewa) had agreed to supply Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) with 560,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of solar power yearly from the Mohammed bin Rashid (MBR) solar park, making Dubai the first country in the world to produce aluminium using solar energy.

The 560,000 MWh of solar power will produce 40,000 tonnes of aluminium in the first year, with the potential for expansion in the future. EGA will supply solar-produced aluminium to customers under the new product name CelestiAL.

The new stable power production from EGA increases the predictability of the overall power system, and advances EWEC’s development of new solar energy projects. The scale of the expansion as a direct result of this initiative is expected to be greater than the current total installed solar generation capacity in the United Arab Emirates. 

EGA would utilise this additional solar power once it is developed, to increase the proportion of its CelestiAl aluminium in its total production.

 “Sourcing cost-effective clean power from the grid will enable EGA to lead our global industry into a more sustainable future. Today, we are taking another historic step towards achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. We are also assuring that EGA’s global competitiveness will strengthen over the decades ahead, not only as the world’s largest premium aluminium producer but also one of its most environmentally-responsible,” Abdulnasser bin Kalban, CEO of EGA, said about the planned acquisition.