Kuwait plans tender for 1 GW solar PV project

With the closing date for the call for expression of interest set on September 7, Kuwait National Petroleum Company is on a lookout for a company to handle the EPC and O&M services on the country’s largest ever solar PV project.

As reported by Bloomberg, the tender for the $1.2 billion Dibdibah solar power plant will be issued in the first quarter of 2018. In an interview for the newswire, Shukri AbdulAziz Al-Mahrous, deputy chief executive officer of planning and finance at Kuwait National Petroleum Co., said that once completed by the end of 2020, Dibdibah would produce half of the country’s planned renewable energy output.

This is a giant solar leap forward for a country that welcomed its first solar PV utility-scale project, the 10 MW Sidrah 500 plant, only last year.

Kuwait, one of the leading oil-producing members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), aims to source 15% of its electricity requirements from renewable energy by 2030. The Dibdibah solar project, which will be able to generate 2.5 GWh/year relaying on the MENA region’s high irradiation potential, could give a big push towards the goal.