PDO awards contract for solar power plant
PDO will buy electricity for its interior operations from the installation at Amin at one of the lowest tariffs in the world.
Times News Service
MUSCAT: Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) on Wednesday said its world’s first solar photovoltaic Independent Power Producer (IPP) project marked a step change for renewable energy in the Sultanate.
PDO will buy electricity for its interior operations from the installation at Amin in southern Oman at one of the lowest tariffs in the world. The company said the rate showed the “huge potential” for the country to produce solar energy at commercially attractive prices.
PDO has awarded the contract to build and operate the plant to the Marubeni Consortium, consisting of Japanese company the Marubeni Corporation, Oman Gas Company, Bahwan Renewable Energy Company and Modern Channels Services. The desert facility will be the first-of-its-kind in Oman and will also be the world’s first utility-scale solar project to have an oil and gas company as the sole wholesale buyer of electricity.
Construction will start in January 2019 and the site will span 4 km2, the size of 480 football pitches. The installation will consist of more than 335,000 solar PV panels, producing enough energy to power 15,000 homes.
“The proposed tariff is one of the lowest in the history of solar IPPs worldwide so far and underlines the significant opportunity for Oman to produce low-cost energy using solar power. The electrical power produced will feed into our transmission system and contribute to off-setting the use of natural gas for power generation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Restucci said.
The project includes the design, procurement, construction, commissioning, financing and operation and maintenance of the solar photovoltaic plant with a 100 megawatt (MW) capacity and associated infrastructure.
Marubeni is one of Japan’s leading trading and investment houses and operates more than 50 power projects with a total generation capacity of more than 41 gigawatts (GW) worldwide, with a third of this in the Middle East region.
Toshihiro Maruo, Senior Officer of the Marubeni Corporation’s Power Business Division, said: “We are very excited to take a lead developer role in this amazing project. We recently announced a new corporate strategy confirming our intention to double our current capacity of renewable energy so that it will make up at least 20 per cent of our portfolio within the next five years. The Amin IPP project is our first success since the announcement of our new strategy and we are delighted to receive the award of this prestigious project.”