Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) and China’s BYD Energy Storage have officially signed a contract to build the world’s largest grid-scale energy storage project in the Gulf Kingdom, with BYD supplying 12.5 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) capacity to SEC. 

The Chinese company said in a press statement last week that it will provide its MC Cube-T ESS, featuring Cell-to-System (CTS) super-integrated technology with a Vcts index (proportion of cell volume to system volume) exceeding 33 percent.

The statement did not reveal the project's cost or completion timeline but noted that, with this new contract and a previously delivered 2.6GWh BESS project, SEC's total contracted storage capacity with BYD has reached 15.1GWh.

In January 2025, PV Magazine had reported that the contract, which was unconfirmed by BYD at the time of publishing the report, involved the installation of five 500 Megawatt (MW)/2,500 Megawatt-hours (MWh) storage systems in Riyadh, Qaisumah, Dawadmi, Al Jouf, and Rabigh.

The report had said the contract marked the third phase of SEC’s energy storage procurement initiative, with BYD’s previous contract marking the first phase and Sungrow’s 7.8 GWh contract in July 2024 being the second.

The Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the 2.6GWh project supplied by BYD was executed by a consortium of State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) and local firm Alfanar Projects.  

In November 2024, a report by Zawya Projects said Saudi Arabia had signed 26 GWh of BESS projects, noting that the Kingdom is targeting 48GWh battery storage by 2030.

Last month, Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) prequalified a total of 33 local, regional and international companies for the First Group of BESS projects, or G1 BESS Projects, with a total energy storage capacity of 8 gigawatt-hours (GWh).

UAE-based clean energy giant Masdar had announced in January 2025 that it has appointed contractors and suppliers for the world's first 24/7 solar PV and BESS project, located in Abu Dhabi.

(Writing by SA Kader; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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