OPWP aims to reduce share of natural gas in Oman's power generation by 17%
Date
7/15/2018 6:52:27 AM
(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Muscat- As a part of its fuel diversification plan, Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) is planning to reduce the share of natural gas fuel in Oman's electricity generation to 83 per cent by 2024 from current 100 per cent.
'OPWP projects that the fuel diversification plans, including renewable energy development and the Duqm clean coal independent power project (IPP), will enable the gas share of fuel for power generation to fall from 100 per cent in 2018 to 83 per cent by 2024,' OPWP said in its seven-year statement released recently.
It said, in terms of absolute number, there will not be any reduction in the amount of gas consumed in power generation segment. But with the help of number of steps announced by OPWP to increase efficiency, along with increase in planned usage of renewable energy and setting up a coal fired plant, the growth rate of natural gas consumption will decrease substantially.
On increasing efficiency of the plant, the statement revealed that average gas efficiency for power generation in main interconnected system (MIS) is projected to improve 20 per cent by 2024. Much of the improvement will happen after 2020 with the introduction of new high-efficiency power plants, and large reverse osmosis based water desalination plants that will put existing lesser energy-efficient multi-stage flush plans to stand by operations.
In MIS, which is also the largest grid in the country, efficiency improvement in power generation will also occur due to higher usage of renewable energy along with the proposed clean coal-based IPP. The expected rise in consumption of gas for power sector will be limited to just 0.5 per cent per year till 2024. This will happen despite having a steady seven per cent growth in electricity production, the OPWP statement said.
Similarly, in Dhofar region, the gas requirements are projected to increase at six per cent per year, while power generation will go up by seven per cent per annum. These projections are based on calculating the impact of wind IPPs planned in 2020 and 2023, which reduce gas requirements by about ten per cent.
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