Middle East’s largest wind farm marks key construction milestone
20 wind turbines delivered to Duba Port ahead of assembly at Dumat Al Jandal site
The 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, it has been announced.
The 400-megawatt project is being developed by a consortium led by EDF Renewables, in partnership with Masdar, a report from WAM said. It added that the turbines, comprising of towers, blades and nacelles, will be assembled at the Dumat Al Jandal site, which is located 900km north of Riyadh, in the Al Jouf region of Saudi Arabia.
A total of 99 Vestas V150-4.2MW wind turbines will be installed, with a hub height of 130 metres and rotor diameter 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.
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.”
The Renewable Energy Project Development Office of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy awarded the $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 $21.3 per megawatt hour, MWh.
The tariff was further improved to $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.
Frédéric Belloy, EDF Renewables’ International Executive Vice President, added: “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.”
Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar pointed out 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.”
