Saudi developer ACWA Power has started commercial operations of a 2.7GW solar PV portfolio in its home country.

The portfolio consists of three PV projects – the Al Kahfah, the Ar Rass 2 and SAAD 2 projects – with an installed capacity of 1.4GW, 1GW and 365.7MW, respectively. The company owns a majority stake (50.1%) in all three projects.

In the case of the 1GW ArRass2 project, this represents only half of the total capacity, which is expected to be 2GW once all phases are operational. Whereas for the SAAD 2 PV project, the 365.7MW brings the project to its full operating capacity of 1.1GW.

The three projects represented an investment of SAR12.2 billion (US$3.3 billion) and were developed along with Badeel, the water and electric holding company of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF). The electricity generated at the PV plants will be provided to Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) under an offtake agreement signed in May 2023.

Modules for two of the projects – the Al Kahfah and the Ar Rass 2 – were provided by Chinese solar manufacturer JinkoSolar. The deal was announced in October 2023, with JinkoSolar supplying 3.8GW of its TOPCon Tiger Neo panels.

Moreover, the solar trackers for the Ar Rass 2 projects were provided by Spanish solar tracker producer PV Hardware, while Chinese power electronics company Sineng Electric provided 1GW of PV inverters to the Al Kahfah project. The Spanish company provided 957MW of PV trackers that were manufactured at its Saudi Arabian facility.