Ibri 2 (II) IPP PV Project, which is the largest utility-scale PV project in Oman to date, has been officially launched. An inauguration ceremony for the project was held this January 24 and was attended by government officials including Faisal al Busaidi, Oman’s Minister of Interior. This story was first reported by local news outlets such as Oman Daily Observer and other renewable energy news websites. It should be noted that Ibri 2 actually began supplying power in November last year.
Located about 300km west of the country’s capital Muscat (i.e., Ad Dhahirah Governorate), Ibri 2 was developed by a consortium made up of ACWA Power, Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC), and Alternative Energy Projects Company (AEPC). The tender for the project came from Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP). The ownership of the project is distributed as follows: ACWA as the lead investor with a 50% stake, GIC with a 40% stake, and AEPC with the remaining 10% stake. The total investment in the project came to around OMR 155 million (USD 417 million).
The government of Saudi Arabia has a 50% stake in ACWA Power. Likewise, GIC is an entity backed by the governments of several Arab states around the Persian Gulf. As for AEPC, the Kuwaiti royal family has a 44.7% stake in this developer of renewable energy projects. The consortium is selling the electricity from Ibri 2 to OPWP under a 15-year PPA. The exact price has yet to be revealed.
Spanning an area of 13 million km2, Ibri 2 has a generation capacity of 500MW and produces up to 13GWh per year. This amount of electricity is enough to meet the demand from 33,000 homes, according to the reporting by Oman Daily Observer. However, ACWA Power has stated that the project can power as many as 50,000 homes. The project deploys 1.5 million bifacial PV modules supplied by Chinese manufacturer Jolywood. Two local startups – Taj Middle East and Diaa Energy – were contracted to build the mechanical installations for the PV arrays. The construction phase took around 13 months.
As an IPP PV project, Ibri 2 is touted to be the largest in Oman to date and the first to have connected to the country’s national grid. ACWA Power has estimated that the project can offset as much as 340,000MT of CO2 emissions per year. It can provide other local economic benefits as well. In particular, ACWA Power has said that the onsite O&M team is going to be entirely composed of Omanis.
According to a recent report from the US Department of Commerce, Oman currently wants to have renewables account for at least 30% of domestic generation by 2030. In order to achieve this goal, the Oman government has initiated several renewable projects. Apart from Ibri 2, other notable ones include a wind farm in Dhofar Governorate and two PV power plants in Ad Dakhiliyah Governorate (i.e., Manah 1 and 2). The wind farm in Dhofar already entered operation in 2019. The comments made by OPWP’s CEO Yaquoob Saif al Kiyumi at the inauguration ceremony of Ibri 2 indicate that the Oman government will be focusing on Manah 1 and 2 next. The tenders for the two projects were released in July 2019, and OPWP originally wanted to award them within one year. Together, their generation capacity is estimated around 1-1.2GW.
The Oman government has established the objective of renewables representing 20% of domestic generation by 2030 and up to 39% by 2040. Besides utility-scale PV and wind projects, there are also plans for building solar-diesel hybrid power plants, installing rooftop PV systems on residential and commercial buildings, etc. Additionally, Oman harbors the ambition of becoming a production base for green hydrogen. Last May, a consortium composed of Oman’s state-run energy company OQ, US-based InterContinental Energy, and Kuwait’s Enertech announced a plan to build a 25GW wind-plus-solar complex for powering green hydrogen production. The complex will be located in Al Wusta Governorate.