Saudi Arabia reveals plans for 54GW of renewables by 2032

By Nathan

Saudi Arabia has just released a white paper for its K.A.Care program, detailing the competitive procurement process (CPP) for the ambitious plan. As it currently stands, the program aims to develop and install 54 GW of renewable energy in the kingdom by 2032, including 41 GW of solar power. The other 13 GW will be supplied by wind energy, geothermal, and waste-to-energy power plants.

The plan is for 5.1 GW of renewables by 2018, 23.9 GW by 2020, and then the rest by 2032. These goals should help to reduce the kingdom’s own reliance on fossil fuels, and possibly help to buffer them, to some degree, from the the worst effects of global climate change.

The first tendering round for the CPP is currently scheduled for the first half of this year.

“Under the plans, project developers will be invited to bid on power purchase contracts. Over the next two to three years, three tendering rounds – introductory, and first and second procurement rounds – will be held, for 7 GW worth of projects. The first is scheduled to be held in the first half of 2013. Subsequent rounds are then expected to be announced,” PV Magazine writes.

“To ensure that sufficient timely renewables capacity is brought online consistent with targets, and to assure a critical mass of early projects, initial procurements will be sized larger than the announced annual targets to allow for some upside margin,” the authors of the white paper explained.

According to the report, the primary criteria for project selection are going to be: overall financial strength, the project development status and the degree of local content. “Proponents that integrate local content into their projects will benefit from strong incentives through the rated criteria evaluation for utilizing labor and equipment that provide a positive net benefit to the local economy,” the authors stated. “While K.A.Care is aggressively pursuing the development of the local value chain, projects will be expected to escalate their local content inclusion accordingly.”

In regards to project type, the target is for around 1.1 GW of solar to be installed after the first procurement round, and a further 1.3 GW of solar after the second. The overall goals are for 16 GW of regular photovoltaics + 25 GW of solar thermal to be installed by 2032.