In Expansion Mode

Oman Electricity Transmission Company is making substantial investments for building new power infrastructure and upgrading existing transmission facilities to meet the future growth in demand, says CEO, Eng Ali Said Al Hadabi in an interview to Muhammed Nafie

- Muhammed Nafie

Can you talk about the operation of OETC and the major milestone achievements of the company?

Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) which came into existence in 2005 owns and operates the main electricity transmission network through which electricity is transmitted from the generating stations to the distribution load centres in all governorates of Sultanate. The main electricity transmission network operates at high voltages of 132kV and 220kV, with new transmission assets at 400kV recently commissioned and under construction.

Basically, our customers are the four distribution companies in Oman: Muscat, Majan and Mazoon in the north and Dhofar Power Company (DPC) in the south. OETC is also tasked with balancing generation and demand at all times of the day as part of its responsibility for the economic dispatch of power in the Sultanate.

Talking about the recent milestones, OETC has invested to build new transmission lines for evacuating power and upgrading existing infrastructure to support distribution companies, as well as sub-stations within the Main Interconnected System (MIS) areas, to meet the growing need for new load, which is expected in the next few years. We are currently upgrading our transmission network to 400kV to connect the 2000MW Sur power plant.

We are expanding our network in the Sohar and Ibri areas also. The purpose of these new 400kV lines is to evacuate power from the new power plants, which are coming up in Sohar and Ibri.