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Saudi’s TAQA and Iceland based Reykjavik Geothermal have signed a joint venture agreement to establish TAQA Geothermal Energy, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The new company is mandated to develop 1 gigawatt (GW) of power from geothermal resources in the Kingdom.
Godmundur Thoroddsson, Chairman of the board of RG, said :”This clean, stable and inexpensive baseload energy source has enormous potential. It goes beyond the 1+ GW of high-enthalpy power generation. Our new joint venture aims to develop large-scale direct-use of geothermal cooling and desalination projects using the Kingdom's plentiful low-and medium enthalpy resources".
Khalid Nouh, Group CEO of TAQA, said: " We created the TAQA Geothermal Centre of Excellence (TG-CoE) in Turkey, with the objective of sharing knowledge and experience of geothermal development with other stakeholders in the Kingdom. Throughout the past two years, TG-CoE worked closely with universities, research institutes, KA-CARE, and SGS under the directives of the Ministry of Energy. The outcome of these collaborative efforts is a promising potential of geothermal resources in the Kingdom, and time have come to take bold steps to further explore this resource and realize its full potential.
Reykjavik Geothermal worked as a consultant for Masdar’s City’s $25 million 5GW geothermal facility more than a decade ago. Its two major projects include Tulu Moye Geothermal and Corbetti Geothermal projects in Ethiopia.
The company currently has 2 projects in construction, 5 projects in development, and a global project pipeline in 15 countries.
Read more:
Saudi Arabia to undertake exploration of geothermal energy sources
Climate Pledge: Saudi Arabia initiates geothermal and mineralisation pilot projects
UAE’s Masdar invests in Indonesian geothermal energy giant
(Writing by Sowmya Sundar; Editing by Anoop Menon)
