Saudi Arabia has awarded a contract for the Kingdom’s first utility-scale wind farm. A consortium led by EDF of France and Masdar of Abu Dhabi won the tender to build a 400 MW $500 million wind farm in northern Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Energy Ministry said that this would be a “significant step towards creating a diversified power sector mix.”
Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Programme aims to boost the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix in the coming years. It is aiming for 3.45 GW of generation capacity from renewable energy by 2020, around 4 per cent of total capacity. By 2023, the Saudi target is 9.5 GW, representing around 10 per cent of generation capacity.