Masdar-led consortium to build Saudi solar plant

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• China and South Korea partnership
• Will supply power for 25 years
• Part of $180bn drive

Masdar, the UAE clean energy company, has won a contract with Chinese and South Korean partners to develop a 2GW solar project in Saudi Arabia.

The company, along with its partners GD Power of China and the Korea Electric Power Corporation, will build the plant at Al Sadawi, about 500km north of Riyadh in the Eastern Province. 

The plant is expected to supply electricity in the region for 25 years, starting from the second quarter of 2027.

The scheme, developed under Saudi Arabia’s national renewable energy programme, formed part of the fifth round of a 3.7GW auction held by the Saudi Power Procurement Company.

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The other solar photovoltaic plants offered in the auction were a 1GW project at al Masaa, in Hail province, a 400MW plant at al Henakiyah, in Madinah province, and a 300MW project at Rabigh, in Makkah province. One gigawatt is enough energy to power about 750,000 homes.

The Masdar-led consortium offered a price of $1.29 per kilowatt/hour for the Al Sadawi project.

Saudi Arabia plans to generate 50 percent of its electricity from clean sources by the end of this decade and to invest more than $180 billion.

It will need to add more than 20GW of capacity a year if it is to reach the ambitious government target announced last year.

In December the government set a target of 130GW of renewable capacity by 2030. 

The kingdom currently has a renewables capacity of only 8.33GW, according to the Indian market research company Mordor Intelligence.

By the end of September, the Saudi Power Procurement Company had awarded more than 19GW of renewable energy projects under the national renewable energy programme.

Last week, the Saudi energy company Acwa Power achieved full commercial operation of its 600MW Al-Shuaibah 1 solar photovoltaic project.

Masdar aims to be able to generate 100GW of renewable energy capacity worldwide by 2030.

The company, jointly owned by Adnoc (the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company) and the sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, currently has 22GW of gross capacity across 83 projects. 

Since 2022, it has operated Saudi Arabia’s first wind farm, which it co-owns with EDF Renewables of France. The 400MW farm is 900km north of Riyadh, in the Al Jouf region.