The Water and Electricity Holding Company (also known as Badeel), a wholly-owned company of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), and ACWA Power today announced the signing of power purchase agreements (PPAs) with the Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) for the development, and operation of three major new solar PV Independent Power Producer (IPP) projects in Saudi Arabia, the companies announced.
The solar projects are part of the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP) which is led and supervised by the Ministry of Energy, with PIF mandated to develop 70% of NREP’s target capacity. The new projects will be jointly owned by Badeel and ACWA Power, a leading developer, investor, and operator of power generation, water desalination and green hydrogen plants worldwide.
These projects intend to produce a combined capacity of 4.55GWac of renewable energy, powering approximately 750,000 households. The Ar Rass 2, Saad 2 and Al Kahfah projects have a capacity of approximately 2,000MWac, 1,125MWac and 1,425MWac of renewable power respectively, with a combined value of SAR12.2 billion (US$3.25 billion). Financial close for these projects is expected by the third quarter of 2023, the press release said.
PIF is currently developing a total of five projects, with a cumulative capacity of 8GW and over US$6 billion of investment from PIF and its partners. PIF’s renewable projects – Sudair, Shuaibah 2, Ar Rass 2, Al Kahfah, Saad 2 – are aiming to enable and support the local private sector through requirements for significant local content contribution and the procurement of equipment, supplies, and services through local supply chains.
