Meeting Oman's power drive

Oman's transmission systems will be expanded and upgraded in coming years.

Abhay Bhargava and Amritap Ghosh from Frost & Sullivan’s Energy & Power Systems team provide a snapshot of the power sector in Oman.

Sector Overview
The Oman electricity and water sector has undergone extensive restructuring since 2004, when the so-called “Sector Law’ paved the way for further privatisation of the market, and led to the establishment of an independent regulator.

Power and water plants are typically privately owned, with the provision that a 35 percent share of the project is floated on the stock exchange after four years.

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The program has allowed the government to successfully set up five power projects generating almost 2.400mw of power and about 360 million litres of water a day. Oman is in the process of launching three more power projects to add additional capacity of 2.000mw and 270 million litres a day.

Transmission
To accommodate an estimated annual growth in system demand of almost 12 percent between 2009 and 2013, a total of 64 transmission projects are planned over a three year period.

The Oman Electricity and Transmission Company (OETC) is active in extending the 220kV transmission system to lessen the risk of overload and reduce power losses. The company aims to use 220kV as the main transmission voltage, and use 132kV for sub-transmission.
Transmission at 400kV for long distance bulk power is also being considered.

Plans are in place to privatise up to 65% of the transmission and distribution sector currently owned by the government body Transco.

OETC wants to increase the number of 220/132kV grid stations before the summer peak of 2013, while 132/33kV grid station capacity is expected to increase by 14 percent in the same period.

OETC is introducing direct voltage transformation on the transmission system from 220kV to 33kV, and from 132kV to 11kV in the next five years.

The OETC is also planning to complete a 220kV double circuit ring around northern Oman by the end of 2014.

Oman has the smallest market for industrial transformers up to 30 MVA in the GCC. There are two domestic suppliers in Oman: Voltamp Transformers and Al Jizzi Transformers.

Transformers above 10 MVA are currently being imported by Indian and European supplier.