Saudi Wind Farm Makes Progress

Saudi Arabia received four bids for the first wind-power project tendered under a government program to attract international companies, without disclosing information about the offers. Wind & solar are top sources of renewable energy in the Kingdom.

The bidders for the 400-megawatt project are ACWA Power, the renewable energy units of European utilities Electricite de France and Enel SpA, and Engie SA’s International Power, according to an emailed notice Tuesday from the Energy Ministry’s Renewable Energy Project Development Office. Saudi Arabia plans to roughly triple its capacity to generate electricity from renewable energy as part of a plan to ease dependence on finite fossil fuels.

Read more about this story at Bloomberg News.

Wind and Solar Lead Saudi Renewable Energy Strategy

Wind power in Saudi Arabia has been an integral part of the Vision 2030 goal to increase renewable energy in the Kingdom to 9.5 gigawatts by 2030. In May 2017, construction was completed of the first wind energy turbine in Saudi Arabia in Turaif, in northeastern Saudi Arabia near the border with Jordan.

Solar energy is also making progress in Saudi Arabia. As part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the United States, the Saudi Public Investment Fund and SoftBank signed an agreement to launch a partnership to build the world’s largest solar power plant. The $200 billion project is so large that it will also support the development of an entire solar equipment manufacturing industry in Saudi Arabia, and create as many as 100,000 jobs.

 “The Kingdom has great sunshine, great size of available land, great engineers, great laborers. But most importantly it has the greatest vision” said Soft Bank Vision Fund CEO Masayoshi Son during the recent signing ceremony in New York with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is the largest investor in Softbank’s $100 billion Vision Fund.

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