Saudi Arabia leases land for green energy projects

• Al-Qassim Region in central Saudi Arabia has signed a financial investment agreement to lease land to the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) for new renewable resource projects.

The agreement concerns a location of more than 23 million square metres (27.5 m sq yd) in Al-Badayea Governorate, which becomes part of the Al-Qassim Region, the state-owned Saudi Press Agency said on Thursday.

The renewables projects will certainly consist of generation plants, transmission and steam terminals along with landfills.

The projects are meant to create electricity from photovoltaic solar as well as focused solar power (CSP), wind energy or waste, the report says.

Saudi Arabia intends to have 27.3 GW of renewable power capacity by 2023, including 20 GW of solar photovoltaic as well as 7 GW of wind power. Nonetheless, the kingdom is on track to fall short of these targets if it remains to deploy new capacity at the existing pace, according to a recent report by GlobalData.