Oman's power demand set to surge
As many as 15 major private sector-led industrial and commercial projects will be plugged into Oman's national grid over the next two years, bolstering electricity demand by nearly 2,000 megawatts (MW) and driving a new phase of national economic growth.
In its annual report published last week, the Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC), the majority state-owned grid operator, said the projects are distributed across the industrial, mineral processing, data center processing, water desalination, and oil and gas segments of the country's economy.
Topping the list, by power demand size, is the $1.35 billion polysilicon production plant of United Solar Polysilicon (USP), which is currently in an advanced stage of development at Sohar Freezone.
With maximum power demand estimated at 800 MW, the USP project will be the largest to be connected to the grid via a 400/220kV grid station during 2025, OETC said.
Also notable are two major data hubs, each with a power demand of 200 MW, which will be connected to the grid this year.
Salalah-based Green Data City, which operates the country's first license for sustainable crypto-mining, will be connected to the 132kV Ashoor grid station with installed capacity of 200 MW in 2025. In the second phase, the hub will be expanded to reach 400MW hyperscale data centre capacity.
In 2027, the oilfield operations of Occidental of Oman (Oxy) will be connected to the grid, starting with planned hookups to the 132kV Wadi Latham grid station with installed capacity of 120 MW, followed by another connection to the 132kV Safah grid station with installed capacity of 65 MW.
Sohar Freezone, a major hub for heavy industry, will witness a number of linkages to the national grid during the course of this year. JA Solar, which is establishing a major solar PV module plant with an investment of 217.3 million Omani rials, will be connected to the SFZ grid station in 2025 with an installed capacity of 88 MW, according to OETC.
Sanvera Carbon's prebaked anode production facility, a key ingredient in the aluminium smelting and mining sectors, will also be connected to the 132kV SFZ grid station in 2025 with generation capacity of 24MW this year. This will be followed by the linkage of the smelter of Star Ferro Alloys to the same grid in Sohar Freezone next year, with an installed capacity of 18 MW.
Also slated for grid connection are the Duqm Cement plant (installed capacity of 29.95 MW) in 2026; Oman Cement to the 132kV Misfah grid station in 2027 with total installed capacity of 80 MW; and the Ghubrah III Independent Water Project to the 132kV Ghubrah grid station in 2027 with installed capacity of 50.8 MW.
(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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