China's Silk Road Fund snaps up 24% stake in 700MW Dubai solar plant

It is part of the world’s largest solar power project.

China’s Silk Road Fund will acquire a 24% equity stake in a 700MW solar farm located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The project marks the fourth phase of the Mohamed bin Rashid Solar Park, the largest single-site concentrated solar power plant in the world. It is jointly invested in and developed by the Silk Road Fund, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), and ACWA Power.

The project is projected to deliver electricity all day at a levelised tariff of US $7.30 cents per kwh. This cost level is at par with fossil fuel-generated electricity without subsidy.

To produce electricity 24 hours a day, the project uses a state-of-the-art combination of a central tower and parabolic trough technologies to collect energy from the sun, store it in molten salt, and produce steam as required to generate electricity during the day and throughout the night.

The plant is in line with the Dubai’s clean energy strategy, which aims to increase the share of clean energy in Dubai to 25% by 2030. It is expected to provide an annual saving of 2.4 million tons of CO2.

Silk Road Fund is a medium to long-term development and investment institution that invests in a broad spectrum of sectors including infrastructure, energy resources, industrial capacity cooperation and financial cooperation. ACWA Power is jointly owned by Saudi Arabian government funds and private investors.

“We could not have found a more capable partner than Silk Road Fund to complement DEWA and us on what is the largest single renewable energy project underway in the world today,” said ACWA Power CEO Paddy Padmanathan.