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  • Saudi Consortium Secures $3.9 Billion Financing for Taiba-2 and Qassim-2 Power Projects, Advancing Saudi Arabia’s Energy Goals

    Aljomaih Energy & Water Company (AEC), in collaboration with Ajlan & Bros Group, Buhur for Investment Company, and the EDF Group, announced the successful financial close of the Taiba-2 and Qassim-2 Independent Power Plant (IPP) projects in Saudi Arabia, totaling 3.96 gigawatts (GW).

  • Power restored gradually in Riyadh neighborhoods after contractor damage

    The Saudi Electricity Regulatory Authority clarified that the power outage affecting parts of the Hittin, An Nakheel, Al Aqiq, and Al Ghadeer neighborhoods in Riyadh on Tuesday's night at 8:33 PM was caused by damage to a main power transmission line by a contractor working on a public project unrelated to the Saudi Electricity Company.

  • World’s largest oil company bets on the enduring power of petrol

    The state-owned oil group, which made $500bn in revenues last year mainly from producing and selling crude, last month took a €740mn, 10 per cent stake in Horse Powertrain, a company dedicated to building fuel-based engines. The calculation by Saudi Aramco and the other shareholders in Horse, Chinese carmaker Geely and its French peer Renault, is that as the industry stops designing and developing its own combustion engines, it will start buying them from third parties.

  • Wind energy is powering America more than coal for the first time ever

    American energy generation has gotten just a little bit cleaner this year. Data from the Energy Information Administration suggests that wind power is a bigger source of electricity than coal for the first time ever. Data from the agency says that wind was responsible for 47.7 million megawatthours of energy in April, vs. coal’s 37.2 million megawatthours.

  • Saudi Foreign Ministry highlights women empowerment in diplomacy

    The Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry held a seminar here on Sunday titled “The Role of Women in Diplomatic Work,” the Saudi Press Agency reported. The event at the Prince Saud Al-Faisal Institute for Diplomatic Studies was held to mark last week’s UN International Day of Women in Diplomacy. Among those who attended were Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed bin Abdulkarim Al-Khuraiji, female ambassadors to the Kingdom, and members of the foreign diplomatic corps.

  • Tech Industry Wants to Lock Up Nuclear Power for AI

    The owners of roughly a third of U.S. nuclear-power plants are in talks with tech companies to provide electricity to new data centers needed to meet the demands of an artificial-intelligence boom. Among them, Amazon Web Services is nearing a deal for electricity supplied directly from a nuclear plant on the East Coast with Constellation Energy CEG -2.20%decrease; red down pointing triangle, the largest owner of U.S. nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the matter. In a separate deal in March, the Amazon.com AMZN -2.32%decrease; red down pointing triangle subsidiary purchased a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania for $650 million.

  • Christie’s celebrates Saudi artist Ahmed Mater and poetic power of art

    “This was the first language of art that told me that art is symbolic, that art is telling a story, that art is your voice,” Mater tells The National. “Here, art is from society, it's part of the family. Art was not inside a frame. It's art for life. It's coming out of the frame to be part of the walls, part of our lifestyle.”

  • Saudi Power Procurement Company signs deals for three solar projects

    Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) has signed power purchase agreements for three new solar photovoltaic projects with total capacity of 5.5 gigawatts (GW), the Saudi energy ministry said on Wednesday. In a statement through the Saudi stock exchange on Thursday, ACWA Power said the agreements are worth 12.3 billion riyals ($3.28 billion) in total.
    The agreements are with Saudi renewable energy utility ACWA Power Company, the Water & Electricity Holding Company (Badeel) and Aramco Power. Badeel is wholly owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

  • How Did the Taliban Power Grab Change Afghanistan’s Opium Economy?

    With the Taliban retaking power in April 2022, the new Afghan government instituted a strict ban on the cultivation of poppy, not only curtailing the supply of illicit substances like heroin but also that of medical prescription opioids. As a result, potential opium production dropped by 95 percent between 2022 and 2023 to 333 tons.

  • Siemens Energy confirms $1.5bn Saudi power deal

    Germany's Siemens Energy has confirmed an order, worth a total of $1.5bn, to supply its HL-class gas turbines along with a 25-year maintenance contract for two upcoming power plants in Saudi Arabia. China Energy International Group, the lead engineering, procurement and contracting (EPC) contractor for the Taiba 2 and Qassim 2 independent power producer (IPP) projects in Saudi Arabia, awarded the contract to Siemens Energy.