The Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) plans to link up to 2.6 GW in renewable energy to its transmission grid by 2027, its five-year annual transmission capability statement (pdf) for 2023-2027 showed. The report includes a generation plan provided by Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) under efforts to raise the transmission capacity to meet future growth in demand and connect new rural areas.

Who’s in: The report provides a breakdown of solar and wind projects that will be connected to OETC’s transmission grid in the coming years. These include a 1 GW solar IPP project in Manah that will be completed in 2Q 2024 and go online in 2025. The pipeline also includes a 500 MW Ibri III Solar IPP to be connected to the transmission grid by 1Q 2026 and another 500 MW solar IPP proposed in the Al Kamil area by 2Q 2027. Connection applications submitted to OETC for wind farm plants include two new sites at the Duqm (200 MW) and Jalan Bani Bu Ali (100 MW) areas. Both wind farms are set to be connected to the grid by 2Q 2026. The plan also includes an addition of 100 MW to the existing Dhofar II wind farm at Harweel in 4Q 2026 and a planned 200 MW wind farm in Ras Madrakah in 2Q 2027.

And that's not all: 13 transmission projects out of the plan’s 32 projects are currently in the design phase, the report showed. These include 400kV, 220kV, and 132kV grid stations to provide significant spare capacity for the transmission systems.

Oman’s eye is on the target: Oman’s fuel diversification policy aims to have 30% of generation output from renewable energy sources by 2030 and to reach 39% by 2040, according to the report. The implementation of the plan began with the commissioning of the first 50 MW wind project Harweel in 2019 and continued with the 500MW Ibri II Solar Plant in 2021. Generation capacity from renewable energy sources will increase to 29.1% in 2027 from 5.9% in 2023, the OETC predicts.