Leading Indian conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has secured a construction contract to build Saudi Arabia’s largest solar photovoltaic (PV) plant.
In a statement to the media, Mumbai-based L&T revealed that the renewables arm of its Power Transmission & Distribution Business bagged a turnkey Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the 1.5-gigawatt (GW) Sudair Solar PV Project.
A consortium formed by Saudi Arabian power plants developer ACWA Power and the Water and Electricity Holding Company, a subsidiary of the Public Investments Fund (PIF) has awarded the EPC contract to the Indian company.
The award of the contract comes right after the official inauguration of the 300-megawatt (MW) Sakaka PV Independent Power Project (IPP), Saudi Arabia’s first utility-scale renewable energy project earlier this week.
While the official statement does not disclose the actual contact value, the Indian construction engineering firm has categorized the project in the $669 million to $937 million, ‘major contract’ range.
L&T will utilize a 30.8-square kilometer land parcel in Riyadh Province for the project, with phase 1 of the project expected to begin producing electricity during the second half of 2022.
Information received from the Saudi Ministry of Energy in 2019 suggests that the Sudair Solar PV Project will contribute to 70 percent of the target capacity of 58.7 GW of the Kingdom which has been designated to the Saudi sovereign fund, PIF to develop. Saudi Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO) will undertake competitive tendering for the remaining 30 percent.
S N Subrahmanyan CEO & MD Larsen & Toubro
“L&T has over 2.1 GW of Utility-Scale Solar projects commissioned and are also operating and maintaining several of them. We have a diversified renewable portfolio of 32 MW Floating Solar Power Plants, 135 MWh of Battery Energy Storage projects, 500 Micro Grids, and 14,000 Solar Water Pumps. L&T is also working on potential solutions related to Green Hydrogen and Carbon Capture & Storage technologies.
T Madhava Das, Whole-Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Utilities), said: “KSA aims to become a pioneer in Renewable Energy, and we are happy to be a part of this journey. We have been building efficient power transmission and distribution networks with modern substations and transmission lines in this region for more than two decades. This is yet another recognition of our capabilities to construct mega projects to speed and scale.”
