The Dumat Al-Jandal wind farm will contribute to the Kingdom’s 16GW wind power capacity
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Energy recently commemorated the mid-way mark of the construction of the Dumat Al Jandal wind farm, Saudi Arabia’s first utility-scale wind farm of more than 400MW capacity and the largest in the Middle East.
HRH Abdulaziz Bin Salman, Minister of Energy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; HRH Prince Faisal Bin Nawaf, Governor of Al-Jouf Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; HE Ole E. Moesby, Ambassador of Denmark to Saudi Arabia; HE Ludovic Pouille, Ambassador of France to Saudi Arabia, Bruno Bensasson, Group Senior Executive Vice-President Renewable Energies, and CEO, EDF Renewables and Fawaz Al Muharrami, Acting Executive Director, Clean Energy, Masdar, were among those who visited the Dumat Al Jandal wind farm construction site to commemorate the installation of half of the wind turbines from Vestas.
Once completed and commercially operational in 2022, the wind farm will potentially supply clean electricity to 70,000 Saudi households and will displace 988,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year, in support of the Kingdom’s climate change mitigation goals.
“We believe that the Dumat Al Jandal wind farm is the first step to diversifying not only the Energy sector but also the Renewable Energy sector by adding wind power into the energy mix and ultimately creating three times more work opportunities for the local talent,” remarked Muhamed Bou-Zeid, General Manager, Vestas MENA.
Located in the Al-Jouf province, 900km north of Riyadh the capital, the Dumat Al Jandal wind farm project was awarded to the consortium by the Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO) of the Saudi Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources (MEIM) in January 2019.
The Dumat Al Jandal wind farm will supply electricity under a 20-year purchase agreement (PPA) with the Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), a subsidiary of the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), the Saudi power generation and distribution company.
