Saudi Arabia has been in the lime light ever since the Vision 2030 initiative. Saudi Arabia starts yet another plan towards building a new tech-savvy country. Saudi Arabia has planned to build the world’s largest solar power project. This project was announced recently after signing a partnership with Japanese tech Giant SoftBank.
According to SoftBank’s Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, it is a $200 billion project and will be completed by 2030. With this project Saudi Arabia will produce 200 GigaWatts. As compared to the solar power project in Australia, which is 2 GigaWatts, this project is 100 times larger than that. It will bring huge energy changes in the region. It will fulfill almost all the energy needs of the country. Saudi Arabia will not rely only on oil for electricity production. This project will carry them away and lessen their dependence on oil resources. The oil reserves will then be used for other purposes. It is the part of Saudi Crown Prince’s Vision 2030 plan. The plan includes diversifying country’s revenue sources.
Saudi Arabia relies on Gas and oil for electricity production
As of today Saudi Arabia relies on and uses 77 GigaWatts. It is produced using two-thirds from natural gas and one-third from oil. This project will give 200 Gigs Watts which is almost three times the country uses currently.
The budget of $200 billion for the project will cover the solar panels, battery storage and the manufacturing plants to make the solar panels. According to sources the project will start this year. They will complete the first two solar parks by 2019. The SoftBank will give $5 billion of which $1 Billion will be from Vision Fund and remaining will be from the “Project Financing.”. It will be for the first 7.2 GigaWatts phase. The completion of the project will ensure that the country will no longer rely on its natural reserves.