The Public Establishment for Electrical Generation & Transfer (PEEGT) and its adviser, the IFC, is calling for expressions of interest from technical consultants to advise on the country’s first independent power project.

Interested parties have until 24 February to respond.

Damascus is now searching for technical consultants to work on the country’s first independent power project (IPP).

The government is being advised by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank.

A separate tender for legal advisory services is expected to follow soon, and expressions of interest are due in the next three weeks.

The project will be built on a site adjacent to an existing power plant at Al-Nasserieh, 60 kilometres north of Damascus. It will have capacity of 220-250MW and will operate as a duel-fuel facility using natural gas with diesel or fuel oil.

In addition to assisting in the technical and legal advisory tenders, the IFC is helping the government select a developer for the project.

In November 2009, Damascus prequalified two consortiums, the Marafeq consortium consisting of the local Cham Holding and several Kuwaiti firms, and Finland’s Wartsila with Greece’s Terna Energy, before the IFC joined the project (MEED 13:11:09).

However, further groups could be added to the shortlist.

The project is set to benefit from finance sourced from European donors. PEEGT and the IFC are now holding talks with the Belgian government.

PEEGT has a monopoly in the Syrian power generation and transmission market, with total installed capacity of 7,800MW.

In addition to the planned IPP, PEEGT is currently seeking advisers for a 50-100MW wind farm to be located at either Al-Sukhna, 70 kilometres east of Palmyra, or Al-Hijana, 50km south of Damascus, or at both sites (MEED 4:2:10).