Dow recently signed sales and service contracts with Shanghai Electric to provide industry-leading DOWTHERMTM A Heat Transfer Fluid and on-the-ground services for a world-scale 700MW concentrated solar power (CSP) and 250MW photovoltaic (PV) hybrid project in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Once complete, this 950-megawatt project will provide clean energy to more than 270 000 homes in Dubai while helping to reduce over 1.4 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year. Additionally, this project will provide a very low levelized electricity cost of 7.3 US cents per kilowatt-hour, bringing an increasingly competitive position for CSP technology in energy generation versus other sources.

A consortium comprising of Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power and China’s Shanghai Electric was earlier awarded the contract of engineering, procurement, and construction of the 700-megawatt CSP project and an additional 250-megawatt photovoltaic project by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA). The 700-megawatt CSP project will be composed of a 600-megawatt parabolic basin complex (three CSP plants adopting trough technology, 200 megawatt each) and a 100-megawatt solar tower. Under the terms of the sales and service contracts between Dow and Shanghai Electric, Dow will be the sole supplier of heat transfer fluids for the three CSP trough plants in three phases through 2022. 

Dow has over 80 years of experience in the heat transfer field. A synthetic organic fluid featuring superior thermal stability, DOWTHERMTM A Heat Transfer Fluid is capable of withstanding temperatures as high as 400 degrees Celsius to collect, transport, and store heat in CSP systems. Compared to lower purity heat transfer fluids at 99.5%, DOWTHERMTM A has a 99.9% purity, which is essential for increasing fluid lifetime and significantly reducing maintenance and operating costs in CSP plants. Its proven performance has won wide recognition in the industry and made it the choice of over 40 large-scale CSP plants worldwide. These CSP plants have a combined capacity to cater the electricity needs of more than one million homes, which translates into a reduction of approximately five million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

As the phase IV of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the DEWA project is the one of the world’s largest CSP/PV projects with an investment of US$3.9 billion and a design capacity of 950 megawatt. It boasts a very low Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of 7.3 US cents per kilowatt-hour for concentrated solar power.