RIYADH - Dumat Al Jandal utility-scale wind farm in Saudi Arabia has marked a key construction milestone with the arrival of 20 wind turbines at Duba Port. The 400-megawatt, MW, project is being developed by a consortium led by EDF Renewables in partnership with Masdar.

The turbines comprising towers, blades and nacelles will be assembled at the Dumat Al Jandal site, located 900km north of Riyadh, in the Al Jouf region of Saudi Arabia, according to a press release issued on Wednesday.

A total of 99 Vestas V150-4.2MW wind turbines will be installed, with a hub height of 130 metres and rotor diametre of 150 metres.

Vestas is also responsible for the project’s engineering, procurement and construction contract, while TSK is handling the balance of plant and Al Babtain Contracting Company is providing the project’s substations and high-voltage solutions.

Dumat Al Jandal will be Saudi Arabia’s first wind farm and the largest in the Middle East when completed. Construction began last August and commercial operations are due to start in the first quarter of 2022.

Once fully operational, the wind farm will power up to 70,000 Saudi households, while displacing around 988,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

The Renewable Energy Project Development Office of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy awarded the US$500 million Dumat Al Jandal wind farm to the EDF Renewables-Masdar consortium in January 2019, following a competitive tender in which it had submitted the lowest bid of US$21.3 per megawatt hour, MWh.

The tariff was further improved to US$19.9/MWh at financial close, making Dumat Al Jandal the most cost-efficient wind project anywhere in the world.

The Dumat Al Jandal wind farm will supply electricity according to a 20-year power purchase agreement to the Saudi Power Procurement Company, a subsidiary of the Saudi Electricity Company, the Saudi power generation and distribution company.

Osama bin Abdulwahab Khawandanah, CEO of Saudi Power Procurement Company, which is responsible for purchasing the entire production of the Dumat Al Jandal project, said, "Dumat Al Jandal is our first wind energy project producing electricity at scale and as a key project under the King Salman Renewable Energy Initiative, it is playing a key role in diversifying Saudi Arabia's power mix sustainably.

"Dumat Al Jandal reflects our strong partnership with the private sector and the commercial viability of wind energy, which is enabling us to establish a competitive renewable energy sector in the Kingdom while reducing our carbon emissions in line with the Vision 2030." In turn, Frédéric Belloy, EDF Renewables’ International Executive Vice President, said, "This key construction milestone, in the largest wind farm of Middle East, highlights the progress achieved in the delivery phase of the project by the consortium and its suppliers, thanks to the support of the Kingdom’s authorities and entities in charge of implementing the National Renewable Energy Programme." For his part, Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar, said that the delivery of the first batch of wind turbines is a significant landmark in the development of the Dumat Al Jandal wind farm and the realisation of Saudi Arabia’s wider renewable energy programme, "to which we are fully committed with our partners."

© Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2020.