Message from Stefan Kipp EMD of AlBihouth
Welcome to our October newsletter. On the 21st of this month we were delighted to welcome to site the Japanese and Swiss Ambassadors to UAE, to help us celebrate achieving 6 million safe manhours on the project. We were joined by Etienne Petit our Board Chairman and the CEO of Tadweer, with C-Level representatives from our project procurers and shareholders groups. As we move into the commissioning phase the interest in our project is gaining momentum both here in Abu Dhabi and internationally.
Testing of our HV switchgear at the 400KV Substation has been successfully completed this month, and we are planning to conduct the outage needed to connect to the Abu Dhabi grid early in November. This will pave the way for back feed power to the site that will be necessary during the hot commissioning phase starting in Q1 2027.
Project Summary to date
Further testing and flushing of the plant fire water system has been taking place this month, to ensure any debris in the pipework during the construction phase is removed before connecting to the sprinkler systems and fire mains in the process areas. We have diesel and electric powered fire pumps fitted to ensure we have full redundancy in the event of system failures. Following on from a previous site visit in September, representatives from project insurers issued a report discussing the fire system installation. They will visit the site again in January to assess the fire systems installed, and to check compliance with the NFPA standards, required for plant insurance. Representatives from EAD’s CEMS department visited site this month, to see first-hand the environmental monitoring systems we are installing. Members of my team had previously attended a CEMS users forum earlier this month and connections with the key members of the EAD team have now been established. As we will be the first energy from waste plant in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, there is great interest in our emissions control systems. Specialists from Zurich will be mobilizing to site in the near future, and they will liaise with EAD’s engineers to ensure that the monitoring equipment is installed in line with design, such that our plant emissions during waste incineration will be compliant with the UAE and International standards described in our contracts. Our Operations team Environmental specialist is engaged with the site team and attends our regular meetings with EAD. He will be providing specialist support as we develop our Environmental Monitoring agenda ready for the hot commissioning phase when stricter controls and monitoring will apply.
We received the report from the third-party welding specialist I commissioned to review welding and NDT works conducted on the boiler and pressurized steam systems. We were pleased to read that the methodology employed, and the works carried out by our EPC contractor were in line with international best practice, and there were no areas of concern requiring any further investigation. Refractory works are nearing completion in line 2, which was the first boiler to be pressure tested. Finishing works around the internal protrusions inside the combustion chamber require the use of a sprayed concrete mix, applied using a pneumatic gun. Refractory works in line 1 are also underway and my team are conducting regular quality inspections and tracking the progress of this work. AC units were installed on the roof of the administration building this month, and testing and commissioning of these systems is needed for full access to the main control room by our commissioning team. Our commissioning manager is now attending the weekly EPC interface meetings, providing updates on the status of plant commissioning.
HSE Update
Following on from the 6 million LTI free man hours celebration, the site team remains focused on maintaining site safety as we move into more commissioning activities.
The Commissioning Safety Campaign was formally launched by EPC this month and our HSE trainer is conducting commissioning safety training for all site workers. A HSE audit was conducted by the Tadweer HSE team during October; there were no high potential findings noted and my team are developing an action plan to close out those matters raised.