
Emirates Water & Electricity Co. (EWEC) has invited 27 pre-qualified consortia to bid for the Gulf’s largest stand-alone battery project – a 400 MW, two-hour BESS. Energy Storage News

Emirates New Agency | Economic Middle East | The Gulf Observer
Why now? Abu Dhabi Media Office
Fractal | Power Technology | NenPower | Masdar
• Battery pack prices hit US $115/kWh in 2024 – a 20 % YoY fall and the largest YoY drop since 2017. BloombergNEF
• BNEF expects 57 GW / 136 GWh of new stationary storage worldwide in 2024 (+40 % YoY). BloombergNEF
• Turnkey two-hour systems in China fell 43 % YoY to US $115/kWh in Feb-2024, filtering into GCC EPC bids. RenewablesNow
Even the bear case under-cuts gas peakers (>US $95/MWh, heat-rate-adjusted).
• Transformer lead-times – now the long pole in global BESS schedules. pvmagazine.com
• Grid-code upgrade – UAE’s new federal law on RE linkage will set performance specs for fast-frequency response. Gulf News
• Follow-on tenders – EWEC’s storage pipeline to exceed 19 GWh by 2027, with additional projects underway. E&T Magazine, pv magazine
Abu Dhabi pioneered grid-scale NaS batteries in 2019; six years later it’s shopping for alithium-ion fleet bigger than Hornsdale and Gateway combined. If bids clear near S$50/MWh, the Gulf will own the new global benchmark for flexible, low-cost solarintegration