Oman just put the Middle East’s biggest single wind turbines on a project sheet.
State-backed clean energy platform O-Green is developing a 58 MW pilot wind farm at the Duqm Special Economic Zone, comprising six 9.6 MW wind turbine generators, the largest individual turbines of their kind in the Middle East. Formally known as the Duqm North and South Wind Project, the pilot is expected to generate around 190 GWh of electricity per year, used to decarbonise the wind turbine manufacturing plant O-Green is building in the same SEZ. The pilot sits inside an 11 GW solar and wind plus 4.5 GWh storage pipeline spanning Oman, the GCC, Africa, and Europe, of which 3.3 GW of generation and 2.4 GWh of storage are already secured. O-Green is the joint venture between OQ Alternative Energy and state-owned Naqaa Sustainable Energy that recently signed a PPA with Nama PWP for a 2.7 GW round-the-clock renewables project in Duqm and Mahout.
Why it matters
No turbine in the Middle East is currently larger than 9.6 MW, according to the Oman Daily Observer report. Oman is starting its wind story at that class, on a pilot built to feed its own factory.
What it means for MENA
The pilot is meant to help decarbonise the turbine factory next door, which will build multi-megawatt turbines on technology licensed from Shanghai Electric. That puts a wind farm and the turbine plant it powers inside the same economic zone. We read that pairing as the template other MENA localisation plans will be measured against.
