$200 Billion Saudi Solar Megaproject Might Never Happen
A $200-billion solar power project that was planned to be the largest solar farm in the world might never happen, government sources from Riyadh told the Wall Street Journal.
The Kingdom earlier this year announced the funding and a partnership with Japanese SoftBank as part of its Vision 2030 economic reform plan that also involves a US$500-billion smart city project.
The solar project would have had installed capacity of 200 GW by 2030 and could have created as many as 100,000 jobs. However, the WSJ sources said, nobody is working on the project and the government is planning another set of renewable energy initiatives, to be made public later this month. Those new initiatives, the sources added, would be more practical.
While some might see the news as a decision made due to changing circumstances—oil prices, for one—others would not need long to recall the shelving of what was to be the biggest IPO in history, of Saudi Aramco. Initially scheduled for the second half of this year, the listing was delayed several times before the delay became indefinite.
