Saudi to produce 60 GW of renewable energy by 2030, says official

Saudi Arabia aims to produce 60 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030, according to a senior official in the kingdom.

Speaking to the UAE’s state news agency, WAM, Dr Khalid bin Saleh Al Sultan, president of the King Abdullah Atomic and Renewable Energy City, said that the country is looking to generate 40 GW from solar energy, and 20 GW from wind and other sources.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 9th General Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) – part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week – he added that there are plans to integrate the renewable energy network in the kingdom.

Saudi’s renewable energy efforts have taken on an extra intensity since 2016, after the launch of Vision 2030, which aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy and reduce its reliance on oil. A raft of energy initiatives have subsequently been announced in a bid to develop a sustainable renewable energy sector.

In 2017 the country launched the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP), overseen by the Kingdom’s Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources (MEIM), and implemented by the Ministry’s Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO).

A year later, the kingdom launched two renewable energy projects in the northern region of Al Jouf – Sakaka, a 300 MW solar PV powerplant, awarded to AWCA Power, and the Dumat Al Jandal 400 MW onshore wind project.

Last week, Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry awarded the $500m Dumat Al Jandal wind project to a consortium led by France’s EDF Energies Nouvelles and Abu Dhabi’s Masdar. Th 400 MW project will be the country’s first utility-scale wind farm, generating power for up to 70,000 Saudi households when complete.