Oil giant Saudi Arabia is going to build the first large wind farm

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is poised to begin generating wind power within three years as part of efforts to use renewable energy to reduce local demand for fossil fuels. In January, EDF Renewables and Masdar (Abu Dhabi) won the contract to build the 400-megawatt Dumat Al Jandal plant, which is due to begin generating power in the first quarter of 2022. As Masdar notes, the project will be the largest wind power plant in the Middle East.

Renewable energy units Electricite de France SA and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. have entered into a financing arrangement for the project, Masdar said in a statement. The wind farm will be built in the city of Dumat al-Jandal in northwestern Saudi Arabia, in a region where state-owned Saudi Aramco installed its only wind turbine in January 2017.

Saudi Arabia is seeking to develop new industries to reduce its economy’s dependence on oil. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund plans to invest in renewable energy projects. The Ministry of Energy has preliminarily prepared 12 tenders for projects in the field of renewable energy sources for 2019, in which about 60 companies can participate. As a result of the implementation of these projects, the country will receive about 3 GW of green power.