Japanese Marubeni appointed to KSA wind projects

Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) has signed two power purchase agreements (PPAs) with a consortium led by leading Japanese business conglomerate Marubeni Corporation to purchase power from key wind projects: AlGhat with a capacity of 600 MW and Wa’ad Alshamal with a capacity of 500 MW. The agreements were signed by the main buyer SPPC during the Saudi-Japan Vision 2030 Business Forum.

The deals are part of the fourth round of Saudi’s National Renewable Energy Program (NREP), overseen by the Ministry of Energy.

On the key achievement, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Minister of Energy, said: “AlGhat achieved a new record low cost of producing electricity from wind energy at 1.56558 cents/kWh levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), while Wa ‘ The ad Alshamal project achieved the second world record for wind energy at 1.70187 cents/kWh LCOE.’

He explained that the electricity generated by both projects is enough to power 257,000 apartments per year, highlighting the importance of these projects in improving energy efficiency in Saudi Arabia.

Prince Abdulaziz congratulated Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and His Majesty Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Supreme Energy Mix Commission for Electricity Generation and Enabling the Renewable Energy Sector for their encouragement and support and enablement.

He emphasized that these two projects are part of the National Renewable Energy Program supervised by the Ministry of Energy and constitute a continuation of the energy ecosystem’s efforts to achieve the goals of replacing liquid fuels in the Kingdom’s power industry.

The Kingdom’s declared goal is to increase the share of renewable energy sources in the energy mix to approximately 50% by 2030.