A consortium of EDF Renewables and Masdar has won a tender to build the 400MW Dumat Al Jandal wind farm in Saudi Arabia.
Dumat Al Jandal, which will be the first wind project in the Middle Eastern country, will supply electricity to Saudi Power Procurement Company, a subsidiary of Saudi Electricity Company, under a 20-year agreement.
It will be located in the Al Jouf region of north-western Saudi Arabia, about 900km north of the capital Riyadh.
The consortium was awarded the development rights by the Renewable Energy Project Development Office at the Saudi Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources following a call for tenders launched in August 2017. It bid $21.3 a megawatt-hour.
EDF Renewables and Masdar are already mobilised and construction will start in few months.
The project is 51%-owned by EDF Renewables and 49% by Masdar.
EDF Renewables chairman and chief executive Bruno Bensasson said: “We are delighted to be awarded this first wind project in the country, which is set to be the most powerful wind farm in the Middle East.
“This success reflects the quality of our partnership with Masdar which has enabled us to jointly submit the most competitive bid. Wind power is now representing a renewable and economical solution in the energy mix.
“This new project demonstrates our ambitions in the country and represents another step forward under the EDF Group’s Cap 2030 strategy, which aims to double its renewable energy capacity by 2030 – both in France and worldwide – to 50GW.”
Masdar chief executive Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi said: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has set a clear energy strategy to substantially increase the share of renewables in its total energy mix to 10% by 2023.
“The selection of Masdar and EDF to develop the Kingdom’s first utility-scale wind power plant is a significant achievement.
“We are proud to leverage our strong track record in renewables to support the Kingdom’s strategy to in-crease the share of clean energy in its energy mix.
“Masdar and EDF stand ready to devote our expertise to realising this world-class project.”