Stakeholders urged to accelerate adoption of renewable energy

Times News Service

MUSCAT: The Oman American Business Centre (OABC) encouraged stakeholders to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy in the Sultanate at a forum last week.

Decision makers were brought in from both international and local organisations, to network and understand the needs of Omani companies and international company offerings.

“It was fantastic to see the world’s largest solar photovoltaic project developers all come to Oman for this event. It was a validation of Oman’s mission to diversify its energy supply and large-scale renewable energy projects,” said Dr. Michael Tsang, OABC board member and co-founder at Shams Global Solutions.

Apart from presentations by government and private companies in Oman on the recent renewable energy independent power projects (IPPs), an open dialogue between the interested parties was held on different topics. Topics for discussion included similarities between conventional gas-fired and permitting aspects and the requirements for photovoltaic (PV) IPPs, a finance and technology roundtable, the local supply chain, as well as the partnership structure and organisational and regulatory aspects of contracting and joint ventures.

“One of our cornerstone missions is to include and develop the local ecosystem. This event enabled the whole ecosystem to hear from the key stakeholders the importance of inclusion and capacity development of the local content. Thrilled to see this dialogue start and progress further,” Dr. Firas Al Abduwani, event moderator, OABC Board Member and Co-founder of Shams Global Solutions, added.

“As a professional organisation devoted to helping foster commercial development here in Oman, the OABC could not have been more pleased with the outcome of the event. While emailing and online networking are nice, It’s important to get people in one place, face-to-face, under one roof, so they can do business together,” Rebecca Olson, Executive Director at OABC, said.