Dubai, UAE — Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) ENGIE, a global leader in low-carbon energy solutions, and Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC), announced the successful financial closing of the AED2.3 billion ($620 million) low-carbon Mirfa 2 Reverse Osmosis (M2 RO) desalination project.
The project is primarily (78 percent) funded through debt financing from both local and international banks, including Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), BNP Paribas Fortis SA/NV, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), The Norinchukin Bank, BNP Paribas (BNPP) and KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH. This follows TAQA and ENGIE signing the water purchase agreement with EWEC in February of this year.
Serving as the UAE’s third largest RO desalination plant, M2 RO will produce 120 million imperial gallons per day (MIGD) of water once fully operational, which is roughly 550,000 cubic meters per day of potable water.
Expected to be operational in Q4 2025, the plant will be owned by TAQA, holding a 60 percent share and ENGIE taking a 40 percent.
Both companies will also take on the operations and maintenance (O&M) of the plant with ENGIE taking a 60 percent stake in the O&M company and TAQA taking a 40 percent stake. EWEC will procure the water supplied from the plant for 30 years.
Farid Al Awlaqi, Executive Director of Generation, TAQA, commented, “TAQA is proud to invest in the development, ownership, and operation of this critical water project in Abu Dhabi, which will contribute to the UAE’s decarbonisation efforts as well as TAQA’s own emissions reductions targets.
In line with our ESG and growth strategies to expand investment in and deployment of high-efficiency RO technology to reach two-thirds of our capacity by 2030, Mirfa 2 RO also enables us to accelerate how we decouple power and water operations across our assets to further reduce our carbon impact.
“In the ‘Year of Sustainability’ and COP28, it is important that we showcase world-class projects like these which exemplify sustainability and contribute to water security, a global issue and an important agenda item at the conference in the UAE this year.”
Othman Al Ali, Chief Executive Officer of EWEC, said, “Creating a pipeline of RO projects that attract investment in the sector is an integral part of EWEC’s strategic initiative to decouple water and power generation, which in turn will enable us to realize the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy’s Clean Energy Strategic Targets 2035 to reduce carbon emissions by up to 75 percent.”
“Through our initiatives, we forecast that over 90 percent of our water production will be from RO technology by 2030, resulting in an 88 percent reduction in carbon emissions associated with water production,” he said.