Saudi Arabia’s Dumat Al Jandal wind farm, its first major wind energy installation and part of a broader mix of national renewable energy solutions, has reached the 50 percent completion mark, according to reports.
The 400-megawatt (MW) utility-scale project, Saudi Arabia’s first wind farm and the largest in the Middle East, is being developed by a consortium led by EDF Renewables and Masdar, two of the world’s leading renewable energy companies.
The progress to halfway completion was celebrated in a ceremony attended by Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, Governor of the Al Jouf Province (where the installation is located) Prince Faisal Bin Nawaf, French Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ludovic Pouille, Danish Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ole Mosby and other top executives from the consortium companies.
The installation of the first turbines began on the site, located 900km (560 miles) north of Riyadh, in August 2020, and the project is expected to be completed in 2022. The wind farm will comprise 99 wind turbines, each with a power output of 4.2 MW. The first power produced by the wind farm is expected in the coming weeks, according to a report in the Saudi Gazette. When complete, Dumat Al Jandal will generate clean energy that can power up to 70,000 Saudi households per year, while the project will save 988,000 tons of CO₂ per year in support of the Kingdom’s climate change mitigation goals.
Last week, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the opening of the Sakaka solar power plant, and said that agreements have been signed for seven more solar power projects throughout the Kingdom.
The wind project at Dumat Al Jandal and solar projects around the Kingdom are part of a push towards renewable energy under the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, and an effort to diversify Saudi Arabia’s sources of domestic power supply to its growing population.
