Riyadh: Makkah is working toward becoming the first city in Saudi Arabia to operate a utility-scale plant generating electricity from renewables.
The city on January 5 plans to select from a group of at least 20 bidders competing to build and operate facilities producing 385 gigawatt-hours per year of power, including 100 megawatts of solar capacity, Mayor Osama Al Bar said.
“No city in Saudi Arabia owns power-generation assets, and we want to be the first city that owns power plants and hopefully the first in the Muslim world,” Al Bar said in an interview on September 16 in Riyadh.
The plans are the latest indication that the kingdom is stepping up efforts to diversify its sources of energy as economic and population growth threaten to erode Saudi Arabia’s status as the world’s biggest oil exporter.
