MUSCAT, APRIL 22 - As construction work begins in earnest on Oman’s first wind farm in Dhofar Governorate, the country’s offtaker of the project’s capacity – the Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) — is preparing to appoint a qualified consultancy firm to ensure that the landmark venture meets with, among other goals, the electricity’s sector’s robust standards.
Yesterday, OPWP — part of Nama Group (formerly The Electricity Holding Company) —floated a tender inviting bids from international firms for the provision of Supervisory Consultancy Services linked to the implementation of the Dhofar Wind Power Project. The selected consultancy, said OPWP, will be required to provide project management and technical consultancy services during the construction, commissioning and testing of the wind farm, billed as the first utility scale wind-based renewable project in the GCC.
The Rural Areas Electricity Company (RAEC), also part of Nama Group, is overseeing the establishment of the 50 MW wind farm in the Fetkhit area of Wilayat of Shaleem and Halaniyat Islands in the Governorate of Dhofar.
The Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), a partner in the venture, has awarded a contract for the execution of the project to an international consortium comprising General Electric and TSK. Total investment in the project during the Engineering-Procurement-Construction (EPC) phase is estimated at $105 million.
A total of 13 wind turbines will be installed on a 1,900 hectare site, offering a total generation capacity of 160 gigawatt-hours/year of clean energy. This would save an estimated 110,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year if the same amount of electricity were generated using convention natural gas as fuel.
Output from the wind farm will be purchased by OPWP under a Power Purchase Agreement signed last September. Power from the facility will be evacuated via a new network to be constructed by Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC), also a member of Nama Group.
The wind power project is expected to be completed by end 2019 and connected to the Dhofar grid during the following year.
RAEC is the owner of the project, and will be responsible for operation and maintenance of the plant once it comes on stream.
Significantly, a wind resources assessment study commissioned recently by OPWP is likely to open up new opportunities for investment in wind power capacity in the south of the country, where wind resources are characterised as abundant.
The power procurer envisions a modest role for wind-based power generation in its strategy to ensure at least a 10 per cent contribution from renewable energy sources in the nation’s total electricity generation capacity by the year 2025. Solar-based capacity is expected to contribute a sizable chunk of this renewables-based target.
Conrad Prabhu
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