RIYADH — The Riyadh Chamber, represented by the Business Support Observatory, has launched a report on indicators of the development of the renewable energy sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The report targets monitoring the status of the sector, the development of indicators of its top resources and shedding light on the national program of renewable energy projects, with the aim of improving the general investment environment in Saudi Arabia.

The report also focuses on local and foreign investors alike in light of the Saudi Vision 2030, where the investment volume in the national program of renewable energy projects is expected to reach SR60 billion.

The report also went over success factors in this sector and highlighted characteristics that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys in the fields of solar and wind energies, in terms of its location on the Global Sun Belt, in addition to the increasing turnout of households willing to use the photovoltaic (solar) energy in their residences to 52.26 percent at the level of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The report showed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the vision and the program, seeks to increase the actual generation capacity of renewable energy resources to some 58.7 gigawatts by 2030.

The report also shows that the size of the renewable energy market in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stands at 17 gigawatts, and totals 70 gigawatts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, noting that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ranked sixth globally in the potential of producing solar energy and 13th globally in terms of potential to produce wind energy.

It also expected the total generation capacity of the national program of renewable energy projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to reach 5.6 million megawatts per hour, and increase the contribution of the energy mix to 30 percent by 2030, where the per capita share of the total electric energy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reaches around 8.954 kilowatt per hour. — SPA