In line with Oman’s vision of diversifying its energy resources, Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP), a member of Nama Group, has announced the award of Ibri II Solar Independent Power Project and a slew of other renewable energy projects.

HE Salim Al Aufi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil & Gas, said that sustainability is at the forefront as Oman embarks on the deployment of renewable energy projects.

OPWP conducted a competition process for the project and as part of a competitive procurement process, it received bid proposals from three bidders, including a consortium led by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC (Masdar), a consortium led by Marubeni Corporation, and a consortium led by Acwa Power. The conditionally winning consortium, comprising Saudi-based Acwa Power, Kuwait-based Gulf Investment Corporation and Kuwait-based Alternative Energy Projects Co, was selected following a detailed financial, technical and legal evaluation of bid proposals.

Yaqoob bin Saif Al Kiyumi, CEO of OPWP, said that the globally competitive nature of bid proposals received by OPWP for this tender assures strong interest from global and regional developers in the renewable power sector in Oman going forward.  The project will be located at Ibri which is around 300 km west of Muscat. With a peak generation capacity of 500 MW, the plant output will be enough to supply an estimated 33,000 homes with electricity and will offset 340,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year. The estimated project cost is over $400 mn and the project will be built, owned and operated by winning consortium. Oman Electricity Transmission Company will evacuate the energy produced from the project through the Main Integrated System transmission network. The project will be commercially operational by June 2021.

Al Kiyumi added that this project presents opportunities to enhance local knowledge on solar project technologies and the specifics of implementing and managing such projects.

Solar 2022 Project

Following the Ibri II Solar Project, OPWP has already embarked on the next renewable project with a capacity between 500 MW and 1000 MW to be commercially operational by June 2022. It is anticipated that the project will be located at Manah. The request for qualification for the project is expected to be released around the middle of this year and request for proposals before the year end.

Wind 2023 Project

As the Public Authority for Water (Diam) has completed a wind Atlas for the Sultanate, OPWP is in the process of conducting a detailed wind resource assessment (WRA) to collect bankable wind data for future wind power projects. The WRA will be across several locations from Sharqiyah to Duqm and Dhofar, where wind resource is considered high using satellite data.

After the successful development of the Dhofar Wind Project (50MW), the Wind 2023 project will be the first mega wind project in Oman. The anticipated capacity will be around 300MW with an estimated project cost of $1bn. In terms of timescales, the WRA will be initiated during the third quarter this year and the qualification process for the Wind 2023 project will start in Q3 2020. The anticipated Scheduled Commercial Operation Date (SCOD) will be in Q4 2023.

Waste to Energy Project

OPWP and in coordination with Authority of Electricity Regulation (AER) and Oman Environmental Holding Services (“Be’ah”) has also completed a feasibility study on procuring Oman’s first Waste to Energy Independent Power Plant. This IPP will include integration of waste treatment and electricity generation facilities with expected waste treatment capacity of 1.4 million tons per annum and anticipated electricity generation capacity of 125 – 160 MW to be located in South Al Batinah Governorate.

The project has accordingly commenced with the target to release the request for qualification to interested developers by Q2 2019 with an ultimate target of commercially operating the project by the second quarter of 2023.