Riyadh expands green horizons

Saudi Arabia’s renewables ambitions extend beyond mere domestic electricity provision

Two apparently disparate events in early June testified to gathering momentum behind the twin strands of Riyadh’s clean energy strategy. Developers pitched to install 1GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity under the delayed third round of a central government-led renewable power procurement programme typical of those being executed across the Mid-East Gulf. Two days earlier, local energy titan Acwa Power entered a domestically novel agreement whereby biofuels will power the entire transport network of one of the vast greenfield real-estate projects under development by the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF) on the sparsely populated Red Sea coast—each aspiring to new heights of ‘sustaina