16 companies compete to build 4 solar energy plants in Maan

AMMAN — Jordan has received 16 technical and financial offers to implement four solar energy power plants with a total capacity of 200 megawatts (MW), the government said on Wednesday.

"We received the offers from local, regional and international companies and consortia under the third direct proposals stage," Amani Al Azzam, secretary general of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources told The Jordan Times on Wednesday.

Four will be selected to build solar power plants with a capacity of 50MW each in Maan Development Zone, the official added.

"We will embark on assessing the technical offers and announce the shortlisted bidders. Then, we will look into the financial offers and announcing the winning bidders that will carry out these projects,"
Al Azzam said.

The ministry will announce the names of the winning bidders for the solar plants in the third quarter of this year, she added.

The four solar plants, she said, are part of the government's plan to diversify energy resources and increase the contribution of renewable energy to the overall energy mix in Jordan and reduce the energy bill.

Also on Wednesday, the ministry announced the extension of the deadline for qualified companies to submit technical and financial offers to build two wind power plants with 50MW capacity, each until November of this year.

The winning bidders of the 14 shortlisted companies will build the plants in the southern parts of the Kingdom.

According to figures by the ministry, renewable energy projects with a total capacity of 732MW were operational by the end of 2017, contributing around 7 per cent to the overall energy consumed in the country.

The total capacity of electricity generated by renewable energy projects is expected to reach 2,400MW by 2021.

In 2014, Jordan cancelled plans to accept proposals to undertake these six projects under the third phase of direct proposals due to the limited capacity of the national grid. However, the Kingdom later resumed the project for the third stage after floating a tender to expand the grid’s capacity by an additional 1,000MW.

Jordan, which imports about 97 per cent of its energy needs annually at about 18 per cent of the gross domestic product, is implementing an energy strategy aimed at boosting renewable energy contribution to the overall energy mix from 3 per cent to 10 per cent by 2020.