Dubai Water and Electricity (DEWA) has announced that they have completed 98% of the M-Station project – the largest power generation and water desalination plant in the UAE.

Since 2015 DEWA has been working with German company, Siemens on the Jebel Ali M-Station expansion and had appointed Mott MacDonald as the project consultant. The project’s current total capacity is 2185 MW of electricity and 140 million imperial gallons of water per day.

HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA visited the expansion project and was briefed by representatives from Siemens about the construction, engineering, and operational processes of the expansion project. It includes new power generation units, with an added capacity of 700 MW and have added two dual-fuel gas turbine generators, two heat-recovery steam boilers, and a steam turbine which is 90% fuel efficient. This is said to increase its thermal efficiency to one of the highest in the world at 85.8%.

Once the project is completed, the station’s total capacity will rise to 2885 MW. The turbines are already being tested including its operation as well as the power generators and their connection to the grid, DEWA stated. Once the initial tests are completed, testing the pilot operation of the plant will commence.

DEWA’s statement also said the combined total cost of the construction and expansion of M-Station, equipped with the latest smart devices and sophisticated heavy-duty technological systems, is $3.13 billion. M-Station was built at a cost of $2.76 billion, and $1.69 billion were invested to generate 2,185 MW of electricity from 6 Siemens F-model gas turbines, each with a capacity of 255 MW; 6 boilers for waste-heat recovery; and 3 steam turbines, each with a capacity of 218 MW.