KSA: The Renewable Energy Project Development Office (“REPDO”) has pre-qualified developers for the second round of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Program (“NREP”)

• Saudi Arabia

• Energy and infrastructure - Clean energy

25-06-2019

Background

Pursuant to our previous updates on 15 January 2019 and 31 January 2019, REPDO has now pre-qualified developers for the second round of the NREP in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Second round of the NREP

REPDO has notified approximately 60 developers that they have prequalified for either one or both of the category A and B projects, which includes seven photovoltaic (“PV”) solar projects with a total capacity of 1.51GW.

Category A and B projects will be procured in a similar manner but their respective financing requirements will differ.

Category A projects have a total capacity of 114 MW, while Category B projects have a total capacity of 1.4GW.

The three independent power projects (“IPPs”) in category A i.e. Medina, Rafha and Mahd al-Dahab –will be financed by corporate finance procured on the balance sheets of the successful bidders and/or through the raising of limited or non-recourse debt facilities.

The four remaining IPPs will fall under category B and will be financed by the raising of limited or non-recourse debt facilities.

The contract structure for the second round of NREP is expected to be the same as the first round of the NREP. There were two projects in round one of NREP, those being the Sakaka 300 MW solar PV project (we are advising one of the sponsors of the Sakaka project) and the Dumat Al Jandal 400 MW wind project (we advised one of the bidders on this project).

REPDO plans to issue the request for proposals in July 2019, which would account for a roughly two month delay from the request for qualification document issued at the beginning of this year.

Iwan Walters, head of clean energy for MENA, commented that “This is a significant moment in the NREP in the Kingdom. With such ambitious goals for clean energy to be achieved in the kingdom in a relatively short time frame it was extremely important that REPDO delivered this second round of projects on time and this year. Failure to deliver this second round in 2019 would have significantly impacted on developers and investors’ confidence in the clean energy programme in KSA.”

If you would like to discuss clean energy opportunities in KSA, the above or the market generally, please contact the team below.