The balance between renewables and fossil fuels remains heavily skewed toward the latter. Natural gas accounts for roughly 62% of electricity generation and oil approximately 38%, while renewables account for less than 1% of the energy mix.
Saudi Arabia, under its 2030 Vision, aims to source at least 50% of its power from renewable energy (RE). To accelerate this transition, the kingdom is expanding its RE capacity to 130 gigawatts (GW), with 58.7 GW expected from solar and 40 GW from wind.
In 2025, the kingdom connected 12.3 GW of renewable energy projects to the national grid, mostly solar, more than doubling its renewable energy capacity from the year before. This expansion in the amount of RE came from key projects such as the 2.6 GW Al-Shuaibah solar plant and the Dumat al-Jandal wind farm. The Dumat Al-Jandal wind farm is the first utility-scale project with a capacity of 400 MW that aims to provide clean energy to 70,000 households, with an estimated saving of 988,000 tons of CO2 per year. In 2026, Saudi Arabia reached approximately 64 gigawatts (GW) of total renewable energy project capacity to date, and an additional 20.6 GW of projects were launched in 2025.
Solar dominates the renewable mix at 87% (2.4 GW), followed by wind at 13% (0.4 GW), while hydro, bioenergy, and geothermal remain negligible (0%). The country also worked to expand its energy storage, with 30 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery storage project capacity launched, including 8 GWh already connected to the electrical grid. Energy storage is essential for managing the intermittent nature of solar and wind power and ensuring grid stability and a reliable electricity supply. However, the kingdom is still some way off its target of producing 50% of electricity from renewables by 2030: renewable energy made up 12% of total electricity production in 2025. The barriers to increased production and consumption of RE include social and political risks, as cheap energy prices are entrenched in societal expectations. Moreover, large-scale deployment of RE systems still faces significant technological and financial barriers. Key enabling technologies, such as energy storage and green hydrogen, require huge financial investments that the country currently obtains from its fossil fuels revenues.
Saudi Arabia does not currently export solar or wind electricity directly to other countries. Its primary renewable export strategy centers on green hydrogen, which is gaining traction as a potential global fuel alternative. The flagship example is the NEOM development, which uses wind turbines and solar panels to produce green hydrogen, which is then converted into green ammonia for export. A second hub, the Yanbu Green Hydrogen Hub, is planned for completion by 2030 and will serve a similar export purpose, though specific destination countries have not yet been finalized publicly.
Domestically, solar and wind energy are used primarily for electricity generation and water desalination. There are also plans to power large infrastructure developments with clean energy, including the $500 billion NEOM city and a luxury Red Sea tourism project. A key motivation is freeing up oil currently burned domestically, as Saudi Arabia consumes roughly one-third of its own oil production internally, at high economic cost.
The balance between renewables and fossil fuels remains heavily skewed toward the latter. Natural gas accounts for roughly 62% of electricity generation and oil approximately 38%, while renewables account for less than 1% of the energy mix. Under Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia targets a 50% share of renewables by 2030, with an emphasis on solar and wind. Progress has been rapid, but the gap remains substantial.
This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard Saudi Arabia Country Managers, Abeer Abdulkareem and Amgad Ellaboudy.