Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm

The Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm is a renewable energy project located in al-Jawf Province, northwest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is one of the projects of the National Renewable Energy Program in the Kingdom as part of the efforts to develop renewable energy systems and technologies. This comes as part of the solutions proposed to reduce heavy reliance on oil and address the issue of rising local energy consumption levels, which are expected to triple by 2030.

The Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm was launched in 2017 when the Renewable Energy Project Development Office, in the Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources (currently the Ministry of Energy), announced the tendering phase for the project to produce four hundred MW of electricity from wind energy. This project, categorized under Independent Power Production, is backed by power purchase agreements for a duration of twenty years and is the first of its kind in the Kingdom.

The procedural operations for the project's launch continued when the Ministry of Energy opened the envelopes for the Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm in 2018. Four companies competed for the tender. Following this, the implementation plans for the project, which was launched in 2018 by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, were carried out. The project aims to supply electricity to more than seventy thousand housing units. This represented the Kingdom's first step towards diversifying its local energy mix as part of a long-term sustainable economic plan and a key element within the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.

Work is underway to implement renewable energy projects under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the crown prince, prime minister, and chair of the Supreme Committee for Energy Mix Affairs for Electricity Production and Enabling Renewable Energy.

Renewable energy projects are of great importance to the Kingdom, representing practical steps towards achieving the goals of Saudi Vision 2030, particularly in the overall energy system, especially the electricity sector, as part of its endeavor to reduce the consumption of liquid fuel in electricity production, reach the optimal energy mix, and ensure that the share of gas and renewable energy sources in this mix becomes about 50 percent for each by 2030.

The Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm aligns with the country's plans to provide energy and benefit from the Kingdom's natural resources for its production. The project's implementation has rapidly advanced, and in 2019, the Ministry of Energy announced a consortium led by the French electricity company - EDF Renewables and Abu Dhabi's Future Energy Company, Masdar, for USD500 million. The formation of this consortium is considered one of the most significant achievements in the renewable energy projects that the Kingdom seeks to implement.

The Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm included providing approximately 950 job opportunities during the construction, operation, and maintenance phases. The average annual production of the station is expected to be around 1.4 TW, at a modest cost of about 2.3 cents per kWh, in a region with strong winds that contribute to the project's success.

The new renewable energy projects are distributed in several regions of the Kingdom, including al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, Sudair, Qurayyat, al-Shuaibah, Jeddah, Rabigh, and Rafha. The total capacity of these projects is 3,670 MW, in addition to the Sakaka and Dawmat al-Jandal projects. These projects will provide electric power to more than seventy thousand housing units and reduce more than seven million t of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Dawmat al-Jandal Wind Energy Project is part of the state's plans to provide energy. King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (Darah)

The benefits of the Dawmat al-Jandal farm, which is located about nine hundred km north of the capital Riyadh, are numerous. On the environmental front, the farm is expected to help avoid the emission of around one million t of carbon dioxide annually.

Several companies with expertise in renewable energy infrastructure are working on the Dawmat al-Jandal wind farm project and own production technologies that establish a pioneering renewable energy system in the Kingdom. Vestas company will provide the wind turbines and will handle the engineering, supply, and construction contracts. Meanwhile, TSK company will be responsible for constructing the remaining elements of the project.

In 2020, the Dawmat al-Jandal wind farm project received the Deal of the Year award for the renewable energy sector in the Middle East and Africa for 2019, after the project set a new benchmark by recording the lowest levelized cost of electricity at USD0.0199 per kWh, surpassing global standards in production cost.

This award is one of the annual Project Finance International (PFI) Awards and was presented at a ceremony held in the British capital, London, attended by project finance leaders from around the world. The development of the Dawmat al-Jandal project is the first project to be commissioned in the Kingdom for electricity production from wind energy as part of the national renewable energy program. Additionally, it stands as the largest project of its kind in the region.

The twin of this project, the Sakaka Solar Photovoltaic Project, had previously won the same award the year before. This marks the second consecutive year that a national renewable energy project has received independent international recognition for setting the benchmark for renewable energy generation projects in the region.

In line with the requirements to provide renewable energy and enhance its presence in the Kingdom's energy landscape, the pilot operation of the first turbine in the Dawmat al-Jandal project in the al-Jawf Province began in 2021. This project aims to harness wind energy for electricity production. It falls under the initiative to produce 50 percent of the Kingdom's electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

The Kingdom is expanding its renewable energy projects across all available sources. In this context, the photovoltaic energy projects include the Sudair project, which has a capacity of 1,500 MW. It is one of the projects developed by the Public Investment Fund and its strategic partner, ACWA Power, which leads the project consortium. The Qurayyat and Shuaibah projects are implemented by a consortium of companies: ACWA Power, Gulf Investment, and al-Babtain Contracting for Photovoltaic Energy.

The list of projects also includes the Qurayyat project with a capacity of two hundred MW, the Shuaibah project with a capacity of six hundred MW, and the Jeddah project, executed by a consortium of companies: Masdar, EDF, and Nesma, with a capacity of three hundred MW. Rabigh project, executed by a consortium of companies: Marubeni and al-Jomaih, with a capacity of three hundred MW. Additionally, the Rafha and al-Madinah al-Munawwarah projects were executed by a consortium of companies: al-Balagh, al-Fanar, and Desert Technologies. The Rafha project has a capacity of twenty MW, and al-Madinah al-Munawwarah project has a capacity of fifty MW.

Collectively, these projects, in addition to the Sakaka solar energy project and the Dawmat al-Jandal wind energy project, will produce an estimated amount of energy reaching 3,670 MW. They are distinguished by being implemented through independent production. The energy they produce will be purchased under power purchase agreements that last between twenty and twenty-five years with the Saudi Power Procurement Company.

Through these national projects, the National Renewable Energy Program aims to increase the contribution of renewable energy to the energy mix used for electricity generation in the Kingdom. Both the Sakaka solar photovoltaic project and the Dawmat al-Jandal wind energy project represent the first phase of the program's projects.