Saudi Arabia Opens 3.2-GW Renewables Round 8 With 1.9 GW of Solar

• Saudi Power Procurement Company released a request for qualification for 3,200 MW of solar and wind projects on Nov. 11.
• Two solar PV plants in Riyadh and Aseer provinces account for 1,900 MW; a 1,300-MW wind farm is planned in Makkah.
• The notice gives no deadline; in Round 6 the qualified list followed two months after the RFQ.

Saudi Power Procurement Company, known as Principal Buyer, released a request for qualification (RFQ) for Round 8 of the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP) on Nov. 11, the company said. The round covers 3,200 MW: two solar PV projects with 1,900 MW and one 1,300-MW wind farm.

The solar sites are the 900-MW Tumair Solar PV IPP in Riyadh province and the 1,000-MW East Al-Amoah Solar PV IPP in Aseer province. The wind project is the 1,300-MW Al-Mozeraah Wind IPP in Makkah province. All three will be independent power projects. The public notice does not give a submission deadline, qualification criteria or a tariff ceiling.

Round 8 is the smallest of the last three NREP renewable energy tenders. The Round 7 RFQ in September 2025 covered 5,300 MW, according to the Saudi Press Agency. Round 6, launched on Sept. 24, 2024, offered 4,500 MW, including 3,000 MW of utility-scale solar at four sites, Principal Buyer said at the time.

Round 8 in numbers

• 3,200 MW of combined capacity across three projects in Riyadh, Aseer and Makkah provinces.
• 1,000 MW at East Al-Amoah, the larger of the two solar sites.
• 59.4% of the round's capacity is solar PV, 1,900 MW out of 3,200 MW (list.solar calculation).
• 39.6% less capacity than the 5,300 MW offered in Round 7 (list.solar calculation).
• 1,100 MW less solar than the 3,000 MW in Round 6 (list.solar calculation).
• 1.04 cents per kWh at the Shuaiba project, which Principal Buyer calls the world's lowest solar production cost.

Principal Buyer runs predevelopment studies, tenders the projects and signs power purchase agreements and storage services agreements with developers. In August it signed four battery storage agreements totaling 2,000 MW of four-hour capacity, with investment of more than SAR4.35 billion ($1.16 billion). NREP aims for renewables and energy storage to reach around 50% of the energy mix by 2030, subject to demand growth, the company said.

Principal Buyer has not published a timetable for Round 8. In Round 6, it announced the qualified developers on Nov. 24, 2024, two months after the RFQ.