Saudi Arabia shortlists bidders for 1.47GW of solar, includes 2.7c/kWh bid

Saudi Arabia’s Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO) has announced the shortlisted bidders for the second round of the country’s National Renewable Energy Program, which included a lowest bid of SAR 0.0609042/kWh ($A0.027).

With 1.47GW of capacity up for offer across six solar projects the second round of Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Program was broken up in to two categories, A and B, the first with 70MW on offer, and the latter with 1.4GW on offer.

Successful shortlisted bidders included EDF, Total, ACWA Power, Masdar, First Solar, Marubeni, and Al Blagha Holding. Projects awaiting developers are the 600 MW Al-Faisaliah PV IPP, the 300MW Jeddah PV IPP, the 300MW Rabigh PV IPP, the 200MW Qurrayat PV IPP, the 50MW Madinah PV IPP, and the 20MW Rafha PV IPP.

Two bidders for the 600 MW Al-Faisaliah project submitted bidders which were “extremely close” with a difference which was within the “statistical margin of error”. As such, REPDO will proceed with a Best and Final Offer from the two selected consortia – led by Saudi energy company ACWA Power and UAE-based solar developer Masdar, respectively.

The results of the bids for the Al-Faisaliah project will be announced this month. Specific prices for Al-Faisaliah were not released.

Two consortia presented bids for the 300MW Jeddah PV IPP project, the first of which included Masdar and French utility EDF with a bid price of SAR0.0609042/kWh, while the second consortium was led by ACWA Power and submitted a bid of SAR0.06215/kWh – both of which translate to around $A0.027.

Another two consortia presented bids for the 300MW Rabigh PV IPP project, with one consortium led by Japanese trading giant Marubeni offering a bid of SAR0.06381138/kWh ($A0.028), while another consortium led again by ACWA Power presented a bid of SAR0.06597/kWh ($A0.029).

The final larger-scale project, the 200MW Qurrayat PV IPP, similarly received bids from two consortia, one led again by ACWA Power which proffered a bid of SAR0.06688/kWh ($A0.029), while the second came from a consortium led by French oil producer Total with a bid of SAR0.0678555/kWh ($A0.030).

The two smaller projects – the 50MW Madinah PV IPP and the 20MW Rafha PV IPP – received two bids each. For Madinah, consortia led by Al Blagha and First Solar presented bids of SAR0.0727533/kWh ($A0.032) and SAR0.1135/kWh ($A0.050). For Rafha, the same two consortia presented bids of SAR0.130772/kWh ($A0.057) and SAR0.1904/kWh ($A0.083), respectively.