MUSCAT : Power demand growth trends in the Sultanate — averaging 6 per cent annually in the area served by the Main Interconnected Grid (MIS) covering much of the northern half of the Sultan ate, and 10 per cent annually in Dhofar Governorate —are rated among the highest globally, according to a key official. Yaqoob bin Saif al Kiyumi (pictured), CEO of Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP), the sole procurer of all new electricity generation and related water desalination capacity in the Sultanate, said that burgeoning demand has contributing to a roughly 250 per cent increase in total power generation capacity from 2,300 MW at the peak of summer in 2004, when the sector was restructured, to almost 6,000 MW during the summer of 2017.
“By 2019, the country will have almost 9000 MW of capacity alongside 1.7 million cubic metres per day of water desalination capacity in operation, construction or development,” he added at a press briefing on Wednesday when he also unveiled the nation’s first utility scale solar PV project.
Among the new power projects that will add to the new capacity is the Ibri/Suhar Independent Power Project, which will offer 1,700 MW of generation capacity, said the CEO. New water schemes offering around 700,000 cubic metres per day of desalination capacity are also under various stages of development and construction, he said.
Tracing the growth of the power and water sector since 2004, when it underwent a complete structural revamp, Al Kiyumi said the sector has so far pulled in around RO 2.5 billion in investment. All of this capital, he explained, has come from the private sector from within and outside Oman. Of this investment, around RO 400 million has been ploughed back into the local economy in the form of In Country Value. Besides, around 1,000 jobs have been created as a result of these investments.
Significantly, the large portfolio of power and water projects procured by OPWP has been distributed across the geographical length and breadth of the Sultanate, from Musandam in the north to Salalah in the south.
Fair and transparency tendering practices adopted by OPWP in the procurement of these projects, along with the efficient power despatch processes of Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC), have contributed to savings in gas consumption amounting to over RO 50 million over the past couple of years. And thanks to the installation of energy efficient gas turbines by developers around Oman, gas consumption per unit of electricity output is now at a regional low of around 2.5 cubic metres of gas per 1 MWhr of power, he said.
Conrad Prabhu
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
