Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has signed a turnkey construction contract worth Dh1.47 billion ($400 million) for the expansion of the M-Station power and water desalination plant in the Jebel Ali area of the emirate.

The M-Station, built at a cost of Dh10 billion ($2.7 billion), is the newest and largest power production and desalination plant in the UAE, with a total capacity of 2,060 MW of electricity and 140 million gallons of water per day.

The station adopts the highest levels of availability, reliability, and efficiency, using the most advanced technologies in the world.

The new combined-cycle power plant will add a further 700 MW to the installed generating capacity of M-Station, boosting its capacity to 2,760 MW when the project is completed in 2018, said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, the managing director and chief executive of Dewa after signing the deal with Dietmar Siersdorfer, the CEO of Siemens in the Middle East and UAE.