Oman Power & Water Procurement Company (OPWP) has received four bids to install a series of temporary power generation units across the sultanate.

The following companies submitted bids:

• Ofsat (Oman)
• Rental Solutions and Services (Saudi Arabia)
• Sakr Energy Solutions (UAE)
• Energy International (US)

The diesel-fired units will be built next to existing substations and will have a capacity of around 600MW in total.

Power will feed into the Main Interconnected System (MIS), the grid network that serves most of the country. The units are to be online by 2011.

As temporary power generation units, the facilities will assist Oman in meeting its immediate electricity needs before being decommissioned. Oman faces a serious problem with a shortfall in power supply over the short-term. The temporary power generation project is intended to cover this shortfall, while the government makes longer term plans to solve the problem through the private sector power developments.

Oman has a large pipeline of projects planned to address its longer term power requirements.

Two new power projects at Barka and Sohar, both to be built by a consortium led by France’s GDF Suez, are part of this programme. A further independent power project (IPP) is planned for a site at Sur.