SEC says energy-efficiency improvements saved 56 mboe in past 4 years

Saudi Electricity Co. (SEC), the Kingdom's utility provider, said the direct energy use amounted to 327.7 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe) in 2019, an 11% reduction compared to 2016.

 "Over the last four years, our efficiency improvements helped save a total of 56 mboe in direct energy consumption,” SEC said in its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) 2019 report, titled “Empowering Future with Sustainable Energy."

SEC targets mitigating the climate change, facilitating a transition to a low carbon and circular economy, using more clean energy, improving capacities and building customer trust.

The second phase of the National Renewable Energy Program aims to develop six renewable energy projects with a total volume of about 1.47 gigawatt (GW). The projects are classified into two categories, whereby Class A includes projects with a capacity of less than 100 megawatt (MW), and Class B projects with a capacity of more than 100 MW.

The Kingdom's utility provider is in talks with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) to develop Sudair solar project with a production capacity of 2,000 MW, and the contract terms were submitted in Dec. 2019.

Furthermore, the company expects the renewable energy projects to provide 3,587 MW by 2022, which will help cut 7.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

SEC will continuously work to integrate the largest possible amount of renewable energy into the grid under secure conditions, by leveraging significant capital expenditure.

The report said that the first-ever utility-scale renewable energy utility, Sakaka SPV plant, was successfully integrated into the grid in 2019. The following projects are expected to be integrated in 2020-2021: 

-400 MW Doumat Al-Jandal wind power plant 

-300 MW Rabigh solar power plant 

-600 MW Al Faisaliah solar power plant 

-200 MW Al-Qurayyat solar power plant station 

-20 MW Rafah solar power plant 

-300 MW South Jeddah solar power plant 

-50 MW Madina solar power plant  

-2,000 MW Sudair solar power plant 

Additionally, SEC plans to invest more than SAR 797 million to connect above mentioned renewable energy projects to the grid by 2021. 

The utility provider expects to spend nearly SAR 8.2 billion in renewable integration projects during the period 2022-2025, to increase the renewable capacity connected to the grid to 27.6 GW.