A consortium including Saudi solar developer ACWA Power has inaugurated the 500MW Ibri 2 solar project in Oman, which becomes the country’s largest utility-scale solar project to date.
The consortium, which includes the Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) and Alternative Energy Projects Company (AEPC), will produce energy over a 15-year period for the Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP).
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The project, which took 13 months to complete and cost around US$417 million, was developed on a build, own, operate (BOO) basis and will be connected to Oman’s main national grid.
The project moves Oman closer to achieving its climate goals, which include hitting 20% renewable energy production by 2030 and up to 39% by 2040.
Yaqoob Saif Al Kiyumi, CEO of the OPWP, said the project will be a “turning point for launching similar projects in the field of renewable energy” and that the company was developing two more solar PV plants in Oman with a total capacity of 1GW, in addition to other renewable projects in the country.
“We have leveraged our combined strengths in investments, industry expertise and technological know-how to achieve the rapid and successful completion of the milestone Ibri 2 project, despite challenging conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Mohammad Abunayyan, ACWA Power chairman.
In December last year, ACWA power – which recently had its planned IPO approved by the Saudi market authority – signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking, a subsidiary of French bank Groupe BPCE, in a financing deal worth up to US$2 billion over two years for ACWA Power’s future project pipeline.