The Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), a company responsible for procuring power in Saudi Arabia, has disclosed a list of qualified bidders for a fifth round of solar projects totalling 3.7GW capacity.
The projects have been issued under the country's National Renewable Energy Programme and the announcement includes several prominent renewable energy developers.
The four solar projects to be developed under this round are the 2GW Al Sadawi solar plant, to be situated in Saudi Arabia's Eastern province, the 1GW Al Masa'a project to be located in Hail province, and the 400MW Al Henakiyah 2 and 300MW Rabigh 2 projects which will be located in Madinah and Makkah provinces respectively.
The NREP's objective is to increase the proportion of renewable energy in the country’s energy mix, with a target of 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
The SPPC initiated a request for qualifications for these projects in November 2023 and is tasked with their pre-development, tendering and energy offtaking.
It has prequalified 18 companies in the combined managing and technical member category, including Masdar, the Samsung C&T Corporation, the SPIC Huanghe Hydropower Development Co, the Sumitomo Corporation and Total Energies Renewables SAS.
Five companies have qualified in the managing member category: GEK TERNA, the Gulf Energy Development Public Company, JERA, the Power Construction Corporation of China and the Saudi Electricity Company.
In February 2024, the company announced pre-qualified developers for four gas-fired combined cycle power projects with a combined capacity of 7.2GW, which will be equipped for carbon capture and sequestration.
These projects are Rumah-1 and Rumah-2 IPPs in the country's central region and Nairyah-1 and Nairyah-2 IPPs in the eastern region. Each will have a capacity of 1.8GW and the requests for qualification were issued in January 2024.
A total of 17 companies and consortia qualified for these projects. These included a consortium of the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, JERA, Acwa Power, the Korea Electric Power Corporation and Samsung C&T.
