Techno-economic assessments of advanced Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) technology for the new electricity market in the United Arab Emirates

In this study, a dynamic cost model was constructed to compare the Levelised Costs of Electricity (LCOE) for advanced Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) technology in comparison to traditional CCGT technology. The key technical and economic factors that affected the competitiveness of these CCGT units were evaluated. The results showed that advanced H-class CCGT technology has the lowest LCOE for the base case scenario at 4.93 US cents/kW h versus 5.32 and 5.71 US cents/kW h for F- and E-class technologies respectively. It is evident that the more advanced CCGT technology matches the major market drivers for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) energy transition, namely; competitive lifecycle costs, high thermal efficiencies which reduce fuel costs and limit CO2 emissions and a high operational flexibility. The LCOE model outputs summarise the overall financial competitiveness of the different CCGT technologies for the UAE up to the year 2030 considering the future power generation demand profile. There are no H-class gas turbines installed in the UAE and this was one of the drivers behind this paper to show the benefits of the latest advanced CCGT technology. The study conveniently facilitates future discussions on the opportunities and challenges of the UAE's energy transition for developers, electricity suppliers and national policy makers.