Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP), has issued RfQs (requests for qualification) for the development of two independent solar power projects – Manah Solar I IPP and Manah Solar II IPP) – in the sultanate.

The projects will be located adjacent to each other at a site in Manah, approximately 150 km from Muscat. Each project will have a generation capacity between 500 MW and 600 MW.

A member of Nama Group, OPWP said the contracts will be awarded in Q3 2020 and the projects are set to be commercially operational by Q4 2022.

Both projects will be built, owned and operated by the private sector and the scope of the projects includes financing, procurement, engineering, construction, operation and maintenance. Each IPP will attract investment of multiple hundreds of million dollars, it added.

The launch of RFQs comes following the successful tendering of OPWP’s first utility-scale solar IPP (Ibri II Solar project) which was awarded in April this year with a targeted commercial operation date of June 2021, said the OPWP.

The implementation of these projects shall follow the successful IPP model established in Oman, using a transparent competition process to award the contracts to two highly qualified private sector companies delivering world-class technology solutions, it stated.

The last date for submitting the bids was July 29.