(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Muscat- In line with Oman's vision to diversify its energy resources, Oman Power and Water Procurement Co (OPWP) on Sunday announced the launch of major renewable energy projects, including a new utility-scale solar project with capacity between 500MW-1,000MW and a mega wind energy project with anticipated capacity of 300MW.
Speaking at a press conference at the OPWP head office,
H E Salim bin Nasser al Aufi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil and Gas said that sustainability is at the forefront as Oman embarks on the deployment of renewable energy projects and the pipeline is full of initiatives in this field that will yield benefits for current and future generations.
Solar project
Following the award of 500MW Ibri II solar project, OPWP has already embarked on the next major solar power project with a capacity between 500MW-1,000MW to achieve commercial operation by June 2022.
'It is anticipated that this Solar 2022 Project will be located at Manah. The request for qualification (RfQ) tender for the project is expected to be released around the middle of this year and request for proposals before the year-end,' Yaqoob Saif al Kiyumi, chief executive officer of OPWP said while announcing the project at the press conference.
Wind project
After successful development of the 50MW Dhofar Wind Project, OPWP on Sunday announced the launch of Wind 2023 Project, which will be the first mega wind project in Oman. The anticipated capacity of this mega wind project will be around 300MW with an estimated project cost of US$1bn.
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.
'In terms of timescales, the WRA will be initiated during the third quarter of this year and the qualification process for the Wind 2023 Project will start in the third quarter of 2020. The anticipated scheduled commercial operation date will be in the fourth quarter of 2023,' Kiyumi said.
Waste-to-energy project
OPWP, in coordination with Authority for 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 (IPP). This IPP will include integration of waste treatment and electricity generation facilities with expected waste treatment capacity of 1.4mn tonnes per annum and anticipated electricity generation capacity of 125MW–160MW to be located in South Batinah governorate.
The project has accordingly commenced with the target to release the RfQ tender to interested developers by the second quarter of 2019 with an ultimate target of commercially operating the project by the second quarter of 2023.
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