IN FOCUS: SAUDI ARABIA'S 400MW DUMAT AL JANDAL WIND PARK
Located 896km north of Riyadh, in the Al Jouf region of Saudi Arabia, the 400MW Dumat Al Jandal Wind Park is being developed by a consortium of French renewable energy firm, EDF Renewables and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar).
After a call for tenders was announced in August 2017, the Emirati-French consortium was awarded the project in January 2019 by Renewable Energy Project Development Office, which is part of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources.
Dumat Al Jandal is touted as the largest wind farm in the Middle East and the first in Saudi Arabia.
Construction work on the project is imminent, with operations set to begin in the first quarter of 2022, according to UAE's state-held news agency, Wam.
Once operational, Dumat Al Jandal will produce electricity under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Saudi Power Procurement Company.
Earlier this month, an engineering, procurement and construction contract for the wind park was awarded to Danish firm Vestas for the supply and installation of wind turbines at Dumat Al Jandal.
Speaking about the contract win at that time President of Vestas Mediterranean, Edurado Medina said that the order had marked the first phase of Saudi Arabia’s plan to install 7GW of wind capacity within five years, and 16GW by 2030.
The Emirati-French JV had also picked India’s CG Power and Industrial Solutions, which is a part of New Delhi-based Avantha Group Company to design and build a high-voltage substation that will connect Saudi Arabia’s national electricity transmission grid to the wind park, under a $14m (SAR52.4m) contract.
The Dumat Al Jandal wind park project comes in line with Saudi Arabia’s aims to localise the production of renewable energy as part of its Vision 2030 economic diversification plans.
