The flow of water will soon help power businesses and homes in the UAE with clean energy.
A huge hydroelectric power plant is under construction in the rugged Hajar Mountains, outside Dubai, that will utilise the turquoise waters of Hatta Dam.
The station is planned for completion towards the end of 2024 and will have a production capacity of 250 megawatts. One megawatt can typically power 500 to 1,000 homes for a year.
It will have a storage capacity of 1,500 megawatt hours and a lifespan of up to 80 years.
To build this powerhouse, we had to build a cofferdam, in order to keep this area isolated from the Hatta dam and to protect it from floods
Khalifa Albedwawi,
project manager
About 1,400 people were working at the site when The National visited to see progress.
Cranes surrounded the powerhouse containing the turbines, while heavy machinery and vehicles were being used for backfilling the area.
The excavation of the 1.2km water tunnel connecting the upper dam with the lower reservoir is complete, and its steel and concrete lining is nearly ready. Work is also under way on the reinforced concrete for the powerhouse, which is 85 per cent finished.
“Construction began in 2019 and about 60 per cent of the project is now complete,” said Khalifa Albedwawi, project manager of the Hatta hydroelectric power plant, as he gave a tour of the development wearing a safety vest and helmet.
The plant is the first of its kind in the GCC because it can store energy, he added.
The plant, being built by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), can operate in two modes: turbine and pumping.
When there’s demand for electricity, the equipment will work in turbine mode. The water stored in the upper dam will flow through the tunnel and rotate turbines. The mechanical energy will then be converted into electrical energy and sent to the power grid.
The plant's response time to heightened demand for energy is 90 seconds. During off-peak hours, the water is pumped back to the upper dam, making the project 100 per cent renewable.
“During the pumping mode, the plant will utilise the clean energy coming from the Mohammed bin Rashid [Al Maktoum] Solar Park to feed these turbines, to work as a pump,” Mr Albedwawi said.
“It will take part of the existing water in Hatta Dam through the water tunnel to the upper reservoir. It will be stored as potential energy with a height difference of 150 metres.”
A cofferdam enclosure has been built to keep Hatta Dam’s water away from the construction site.
“The powerhouse is part of the existing Hatta Dam. To build this powerhouse, we had to build a cofferdam, in order to keep this area isolated from the Hatta Dam and to protect it from floods.”
Mr Albedwawi drove from the lower reservoir to the upper dam via a winding mountain road in about 15 minutes. He passed through two access tunnels, each 500 metres long, to enter the construction site. Once the power station is operational, the tunnels will be used by staff operating the plant.
“The upper dam has two walls. The height of the main wall is 72 metres and the side wall is about 37 metres. They are made of Roller Compacted Concrete and both walls are complete,” Mr Albedwawi said.
The plant will help achieve the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 and the Dubai Net Zero Carbon Emissions Strategy 2050 to provide 100 per cent of the emirate’s total power production capacity from clean energy sources.
“The project supports the plan to meet the social, economic development and environment needs in addition to providing job opportunities for UAE citizens in Hatta,” Mr Albedwawi added.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
How the bonus system works
The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.
The £10,000 (Dh50,000) payment is made to those riders who have completed the highest number of orders in each market.
There are also riders who will receive payments of £1,000 (Dh5,000) and £500 (Dh2,500).
All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive £200 (Dh1,000), the company said when it announced the scheme.
What to watch out for:
Algae, waste coffee grounds and orange peels will be used in the pavilion's walls and gangways
The hulls of three ships will be used for the roof
The hulls will painted to make the largest Italian tricolour in the country’s history
Several pillars more than 20 metres high will support the structure
Roughly 15 tonnes of steel will be used
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The past Palme d'Or winners
2018 Shoplifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda
2017 The Square, Ruben Ostlund
2016 I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach
2015 Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
2014 Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu), Nuri Bilge Ceylan
2013 Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie d'Adèle: Chapitres 1 et 2), Abdellatif Kechiche, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux
2012 Amour, Michael Haneke
2011 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat), Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2009 The White Ribbon (Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte), Michael Haneke
2008 The Class (Entre les murs), Laurent Cantet
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
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