General Electric To Lead Wind Power Project In Abu Dhabi

Masdar, a renewable energy company in Abu Dhabi, has signed a deal with a consortium made up of several global players to put up a wind farm in Oman. The consortium consists of TSK from Spain and the US-based General Electric. The project is the joint work of Oman’s Rural Areas Electricity Company and Masdar and the funding will come from the ADFD – Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.

General Electric will not only lead the consortium but will be the source of the wind turbines that the project will require. TSK will mostly be involved in constructing the plant. This will be the first wind farm to be constructed on a large scale in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Carbon dioxide emissions

Once it is completed the generated electricity from the wind farm is estimated to reach 50 megawatts. It will be supplied to about 16,000 households and in the governorate of Dhofar this will be around 7% of the combined installed electricity generation capacity. According to officials the project will offset carbon dioxide emission totaling 110,000 tons every year.

“The Dhofar wind power project will play an important role in supporting the diversification of Oman’s energy mix, while providing a reliable source of clean power to serve its growing population and economy,” said the chief executive officer of Masdar, Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi.

Gulf Cooperation Council

According to estimates the installed power generation capacity in the renewables sector is less than 1%. Most of the electricity generated in Oman is from natural gas sources and this is about 97%. The entire Gulf Cooperation Council region is, however, focused in increasing the amount of electricity generated from renewable energy sources.

A report recently released by MEED indicated that investments worth over $200 billion were required by North African and Middle East countries in order to develop renewable energy projects which are in various design and study stages. The amount of electricity expected to be generated from these projects is estimated to exceed 67 gigawatts.

Other major projects in wind power generation that Masdar is involved in around the world includes the Dudgeon wind farm which is costing an estimated $1.9 billion and which is located on the Norfolk coastline in the United Kingdom. Others include Scotland’s Hywind wind farm, Serbia’s Tesla wind farm which has a generating capacity of 158 megawatts and Jordan’s Tafila wind farm which has a capacity of 113 megawatts.