Saudi Arabia needs to strengthen its policy toward establishing renewables as the world’s dominant energy source. Saudi Arabia must move away from oil being a prime source of its income from imports and focus much more on harvesting the abundant natural resources the country has to offer. Seeing that Saudi Arabia is the leading exporter of oil, and therefore stands to lose the most (economically) from the move away from oil as an energy source, a move in this direction would have a tremendous impact on pushing the international energy industry towards renewable energy. It would show that Saudi Arabia is willing to put its short-term economic gains on hold in order to establish renewables as the dominant energy source, as recommended by the IPCC in their latest report. In order for this to happen, the Saudi Arabian government will need to be on board with the additional investment of capital into renewables, and it will require the cooperation of foreign banks and investment funds, as well as the technological and logistical expertise of renewable energy manufacturers.

Activity Rating: **** Moving Forward

Saudi Arabia’s policy to move toward establishing its renewable energy sector is doable for several reasons. First, Saudi Arabia has abundant natural resources the country has to harvest as it enjoys a great amount of sunshine and wind power to invest in solar and wind energy projects. Second, the Kingdom has several reputable renewable energy research centers and institutions like King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), the National Renewable Energy Center, and the National Renewable Energy Program that have the resources and the expertise to set up a strategy to plan and implement the renewable energy projects.
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It seems as if Saudi Arabia is well on its way to its goal of producing at least 9.5 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030. Proposed contracts with the Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources (MEIM) are expected to offer for bidding 3.25GW of solar and 800 Megawatts of wind capacity this year alone. The Kingdom’s announcement of 400MW wind project and 200GW solar development received global interest. The implementation of these projects carries a great potential for the Kingdom to lead renewable energy sector developments.

The Kingdom must be on board with the additional investment of capital into renewables, and it must continue the cooperation with foreign banks and investment funds, as well as the technological and logistical expertise of renewable energy manufacturers. We urge the Saudi Arabian government to announce concrete steps to move forward with its renewable energy projects and any future plans to scale up these projects to cover the whole country to be in line with the IPCC recommendations in their latest report.
?Contact:??Khalid A. Al-Falih
Minister of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources
webmaster@meim.gov.sa

For further information contact Climate Scorecard’s Saudi Arabia Partner Organization————- OR Climate Scorecard Country Managers for Saudi Arabia, Abeer Abdulkareem abeerabdulkareemm2003@gmail.com and Amgad Ellaboudy amgad.ellaboudy@gmail.com