Abu Dhabi's Taqa in consortium for 2 power projects in Saudi Arabia

Dubai: The Abu Dhabi utility company Taqa has entered 25-year power purchase deals with the Saudi Power Procurement Company for two greenfield combined cycle gas turbine power projects in Saudi Arabia.

Taqa has got Japan’s Jera Co. and Al Bawani Capital as partners in the project. The Power Purchase Agreements follow SPPC’s announcement of contracts for the 1.8GW Rumah 2 and 1.8GW Al Nairyah 2 conventional independent power producer (IPP) projects to the Taqa-led consortium.

The ADX-listed Taqa will now have 5 power projects in development within Saudi Arabia. 

“Taqa has ambitious growth targets of 150GW by 2030," said Farid Al Awlaqi, CEO of Taqa’s Generation business.  "Today’s announcement marks a major milestone for 2024 with the addition of a further 3.6GW of low-carbon gas-fired power capacity in Saudi Arabia, making it five greenfield projects in the Kingdom under development in Taqa’s portfolio.

"In addition to signing the PPAs, we are taking on the role as the lead developer and will oversee the operations and maintenance of these two world-class plants, demonstrating our expanded operational capabilities."

The new plants will be developed by respective special purpose entities owned by TAQA (49%), Jera (31%) and AlBawani (20%) with operation and maintenance to be undertaken by the partners through respective O&M special purpose entities. (These too will have the same shareholding structure.)

Earlier this year, Taqa and Jera reached financial closure of a new industrial steam and electricity cogeneration plant, which will produce electricity and steam for a petrochemical complex located in Jubail.