United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates is a set of emirate-level single buyers with a mature independent-producer model. EWEC procures water and power for Abu Dhabi, while DEWA, SEWA and EtihadWE procure separately for Dubai, Sharjah and the northern emirates.^{1 2 3 4} Abu Dhabi plants are greenfield reverse-osmosis projects under 30-year water purchase agreements with EWEC, in which the developer owns up to 40% and the Abu Dhabi government, indirectly, most of the rest.^5 1 The register tracks 29 schemes with US$ 23.2 bn of disclosed value, US$ 10.5 bn of it in projects not yet operating.⁶ The funnel is published: for Saadiyat Island, 41 companies and consortia expressed interest, 19 qualified and four submitted proposals.⁷ Mirfa 2 closed at 78% debt.¹ In-country value certification counts for 40% of the financial evaluation, and a missing certificate scores zero.⁸

The commercial picture in United Arab Emirates: the scale of the economy and the water sector, the investment climate, and where the near-term activity is concentrated.

The bodies that commission, regulate and operate water infrastructure in United Arab Emirates. The federal Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure leads national water policy; emirate-level entities sign project offtakes, including EWEC in Abu Dhabi, DEWA in Dubai, SEWA in Sharjah and EtihadWE in the northern emirates;^{10 2 3 4} Abu Dhabi’s Department of Energy regulates prices and service standards.¹¹

• Ministry of Energy & InfrastructureMinistry
• Abu Dhabi Department of EnergyRegulator
• Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA)Utility
• Etihad Water & Electricity (EtihadWE)Utility
• Sharjah Electricity, Water & Gas Authority (SEWA)Utility
• Emirates Water & Electricity Company (EWEC)PPP procurer
• Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD)Environment
• MasdarDeveloper / operator
• MetitoDeveloper / operator
• UticoDeveloper / operator

The framework in United Arab Emirates is Mature (large low-carbon RO IWPs, including projects with low-cost bids), the schemes we track carry US$ 23.2 bn of disclosed value, US$ 10.5 bn of it in projects not yet operating, and the funders most active in the sector are Project finance, Equity investors (Mubadala, TAQA).

Delivery splits by asset class across the region: dams and trunk conveyance are mostly engineering contracts carried by sovereign or development-bank finance; bulk supply increasingly uses build-operate-transfer concessions against a long-term offtake; and distribution work is let as performance-based contracts paid against measured leakage reduction. The Finance & Economics hub sets out each model and where it has been used.

The projects register bears this out. Of the 29 tracked schemes in United Arab Emirates, 15 name a concession or independent-producer structure in the finance note; the rest record only where the money came from, which is not the same as saying they were not concessions.

Abu Dhabi is a single-buyer market with a hard structural rule: the developer takes a minority stake by design. EWEC, formed in November 2018 and part of ADQ, states in its own invitations that the successful developer or consortium “will own up to 40 percent of the entity”, with the remainder primarily held indirectly by the Abu Dhabi government.^5 1 The funnel is narrow and published: for the Saadiyat Island plant, 41 companies and consortia submitted expressions of interest, 19 qualified for the request for proposals, and four proposals arrived.⁷

Frameworks vary by emirate; the primary references are each emirate's utility and regulator.

Tracked schemes in United Arab Emirates, largest first. Each has its own page with the parties, the finance and a dated history.

29 tracked in total. The full set, filterable, is in the major projects register.

Contracts on record in United Arab Emirates, from the awards log and the major projects register, dated by commissioning where known.

11 further awards in this sector have no value recorded in our register and are not in the chart.

Repeat winners

• ACWA Power4 tracked awards, as developer
• BESIX4 tracked awards, 2 as developer, 2 as contractor
• International Power3 tracked awards, as developer
• Marubeni3 tracked awards, as developer
• Veolia3 tracked awards, 2 as developer, 1 as contractor
• Acciona2 tracked awards, 1 as developer, 1 as contractor

Structured procurements and live tenders in United Arab Emirates, drawn from the same review that maintains the pipeline tracker.

Pipeline & awards

Tenders

What households pay

TAQA (Abu Dhabi) residential rates US$0.57–2.83/m³; Dubai DEWA base slabs US$2.10–2.76/m³, up to US$3.06/m³ with the fuel surcharge, before VAT. Abu Dhabi, from 1 January 2025: UAE nationals pay AED 2.09 per 1,000 litres up to an average of 7,000 litres a day in a villa or 700 in a flat, and AED 2.60 above it; expatriates pay AED 7.84 up to 5,000 litres a day in a villa or 700 in a flat, and AED 10.41 above it. Social card holders get a free first band. These rates have applied since January 2017, and 5% VAT applies to water consumption. Dubai: AED 7.700/m³ for the first 27 m³ a month, AED 8.800 to 54 m³ and AED 10.120 above it, plus an AED 1.100/m³ fuel surcharge and 5% VAT. Converted at AED 3.6725 per US$.

Residential tariffs, and the cost of supply where a utility publishes it, are kept in one place for the whole region so the comparison holds: a tariff means little without the cost it is measured against.

No dated items have been carried forward for United Arab Emirates yet. This section fills from the monthly briefings as they are published.