TotalEnergies and friends are building a 119 MW solar farm in KSA

TotalEnergies-led consortium set to build KSA solar farm: Noor Alwadi Renewable Energy Company — a JV between French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies, Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation, and Saudi Arabia’s Altaaqa Renewable Energy — is set to build a 119 MW solar plant in Saudi Arabia, according to a statement released last Wednesday. The project is expected to become operational in March of 2025 and is expected to cost c. USD 100 mn, the statement notes.

The details: The solar farm will be built by Chinese infrastructure company Sepco in Wadi Al-Dawasir, 500 km south of Riyadh. The project broke ground last month and is expected to be completed by 2025, the statement notes. The consortium will build, own, and operate the solar farm. The Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) will be the sole offtaker of the clean energy the project will produce.

Who owns what: TotalEnergies and Toyota each hold a 40% stake in the company, while Saudi Arabia’s Altaaqa Renewable Energy owns a 20% share, according to the statement. The Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation and Riyadh Bank will both serve as lenders for the project, the statement adds, without specifying how much financing each party contributed to the solar farm.

Total has been making moves in our neck of the woods: The company inaugurated the USD 470 mn 800 MWp Al Kharsaah solar plant in Qatar last October. In November, TotalEren and SME investor Enara Capital signed an agreement for a 300k ton green ammonia facility in Egypt’s Ain Al Sokhna. More recently, the company signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to develop a 1 GW solar power plant to supply the Basrah regional grid in April. The French company said it would invite renewables giant Acwa Power to take part in the project.

Ditto for Toyota Tsusho: The Japanese firm is part of a consortium developing the USD 501mn 500 MW Gulf of Suez wind farm in Egypt. Earlier in November, the consortium inked an agreement to build a separate 3 GW wind farm in Egypt.

And SPPC is snapping up renewable energy PPAs: The company inked power purchase agreements with KSA’s Badeel — owned by KSA’s sovereign wealth fund the Public Investment Fund (PIF) — back in May for three solar energy projects worth 4.5 GW at an investment ticket of SAR 12.2 bn (c. USD 3.25 bn).