Oman moves closer to first wind project

OMAN: Oman's Rural Areas Electricity Company (Raeco) has issued three tenders for its first ever wind project.

The project will be located close to the city of Salalah in southern Oman

Bids are invited for legal advisory services, technical advisory services and to engineer, procure and construct the 50MW project, located at Haweel in the southern Dhofar governate.

Abu-Dhabi-based clean energy company Masdar last month signed an agreement to fund and manage the project, at an estimated cost of $125 million.

Raeco, which started taking wind measurements in April, expects the plant to consist of turbines rated at 2MW to 3.2MW. The company is training staff to take over operation of the plant three years after completion, scheduled for early 2017.

The project is part of the government's plan to cut its dependency on fossil fuels and reduce energy subsidies.

Oman is targetting 90MW of renewables by 2019.