The National - News

Saudi Arabia pushes ahead on wind

▶ Energy minister says the kingdom plans to spend US$50 billion on its renewables programme within six years

- LEANNE GRAVES

Saudi Arabia has resumed its efforts to launch the kingdom’s first large-scale wind farm, totalling 400 megawatts (MW), according to the country’s energy minister Khalid Al Falih. And there are plans for further tenders to kick off this year as part of a US$50 billion spending program on renewables within six years.

A request for qualificat­ions for the wind project in the Al Jouf region in the north of the country was released on Sunday, marking the first step in a competitiv­e bidding process. The first round of Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP) included plans for projects that would generate 700MW of solar and wind power. However, only 300MW of solar power projects have hit the deadlines as laid out by the country’s Renewable Energy Project Developmen­t Office (Repdo).

Although the request for qualificat­ions launch comes five months after the original target launch date of February 20, Mr Al Falih, insisted the kingdom’s renewable energy ambitions remain on target.

“As we enter the second half of the year, we remain committed to ensuring our ambitious programme remains on-track to deliver the value and opportunit­ies targeted by the programme,” he said.

After companies have been vetted to meet minimum standards, a request for proposals will be issued, currently slated for the end of August. Mr Al Falih said the timeline “ensures that we remain on course to tender 700MW in round one this year”.

The kingdom, plans to spend up to $50 billion to help meet its target of producing enough electricit­y from renewables to power the equivalent of 3 million homes within six years, Mr Al Falih had said in January.

The original site for the wind project was slated to be at Midyan in the north-western Tabuk province. Turki Al Shehri, head of Repdo, said that the Midyan project is still scheduled to be tendered later this year after first completing further studies.

“Midyan is still in pre-developmen­t, but hopefully we will tender it fairly soon,” he said. “We didn’t want to postpone it too long, so we replaced (it) with the project in Al Jouf.”

Mr Al Shehri said the 24 companies that had been shortliste­d for the Midyan wind project in April are being carried over into the new location, with the opportunit­y for new companies to join the race.

He said the ministry had seen a great deal of interest for its renewables programme, totalling around 600 expression­s of interests from 48 countries.

“There was a fairly large amount of companies that participat­ed, but there were others that didn’t get the news,” Mr Al Shehri said.

The new Al Jouf location is in the same area as a 300MW solar project that is expected to be awarded in September. However, Mr Al Shehri said the projects were entirely separate, feeding power into two different substation­s.

Saudi Arabia, long known for its reliance on its oil and gas sector, began its shift towards economic diversific­ation last year with its Vision 2030 plan.

Among several bold initiative­s for the reorganisa­tion of the country’s economy, the plan marked the first time that the country had set out government targets for renewable energy. In line with the vision and interim targets of Vision 2030, the kingdom is targeting the addition of 3.45 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy to the national grid in just three years, scaling up to 9.5GW by 2023.

The Al Jouf wind project will be awarded in January, but there are more project tenders expected to come out this year.

“We aren’t done yet, you’ll see more projects this year,” Mr Al Shehri said.

 ?? Regis Duvignau / Reuters ?? Saudi Arabia’s Al Jouf wind project will be awarded in January
Regis Duvignau / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s Al Jouf wind project will be awarded in January

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Arab Emirates