In February 2019, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported that Dubai's electricity and water authority DEWA had received five bids to advise on a seawater reverse osmosis plant at Hassyan. Planned at 545,531 m³/day, it was set to become Dubai's first plant tendered under the independent water producer (IWP) approach. Bids came from Cranmore Partners, Synergy, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young. DEWA chief executive Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer named 2023 as the expected start of production.
The report showed that Dubai was transferring the private producer model already tested in power generation to seawater desalination at the time.