Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) has signed two power purchase agreements (PPAs) with a consortium led by top Japanese business conglomerate Marubeni Corporation to procure power from its key wind projects: the 600MW AlGhat and 500MW Wa’ad Alshamal. The deals were signed by the principal buyer SPPC during the Saudi-Japan Vision 2030 Business Forum.

The deals come as part of Round 4 of the Saudi National Renewable Energy Program (NREP), which is supervised by the Ministry of Energy.

On the key achievement, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Minister of Energy said: “AlGhat had achieved a new record low cost of electricity production from wind power at 1.56558 cents/kWh levelised cost of electricity (LCOE), while Wa’ad Alshamal project achieved a second world record low for wind power at 1.70187 cents/kWh LCOE.”

He explained that the electricity produced from both projects was sufficient to power 257,000 residential units per year, which emphasis the significance of these projects in enhancing the energy efficiency in Saudi Arabia.

Prince Abdulaziz commended Saudi’s King Salman and His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Crown Prince, Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Supreme Committee for Energy Mix Affairs for Electricity Production and Enabling Renewable Energy Sector, for their encouragement, support and enablement.

He pointed out that these two projects were part of the National Renewable Energy Programme which is supervised by the Ministry of Energy, and is an extension of the energy ecosystem’s efforts towards realising objectives for displacing liquid fuels in the Kingdom’s power sector.

The Kingdom’s stated objective is to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix to around 50% by 2030.