Saudi Arabia turns from oil to sun: $109 Billion Plan

When the world's biggest oil producer plans to shift to solar energy, maybe it's time for the rest of the world to realize there's money in solar energy.

Sarfaraz Khan wrote for Solar PV Investor 17 May 2012 Saudi Arabia, The Land of Plenty For Solar: Saudi Arabia's energy strategy plans to add 41GW to the national grid in 20 years through investments of $109B.

Ali Al Naimi, surprised the global solar stage with his grand announcement, “Saudi Arabia aspires to export as much solar energy in the future as it exports oil now.”

That was two years ago. This month Saudi Arabia held the fourth Saudi Solar Energy forum.

The summit turned out to be extremely successful, as by the end of the meeting, Saudi Arabia officially announced its ambitious solar energy strategy that plans to add 41GW to the national grid in 20 years through investments of $109B. The country currently produces just 3MW from solar. According to the plan, 25GW will be generated from solar thermal plants and 16GW from PV panels. The country aspires to generate a quarter of its total energy from the solar sector by 2032.

It seems the world's biggest oil exporter is planning for a future in which oil is much less important and the sun much more so.

And in that conference:

The companies that participated in the conference included First Solar (FSLR), Amonix, Areva Solar, Abengoa Solar, Novatec Solar, Siemens and Soitec Solar GmbH.

Not a U.S. company in that list. Of course, the U.S. doesn't need Saudi Arabia as a customer if we just get on with solar here at home. Georgia, for that matter, has two solar manufacturers Suniva of Norcross and MAGE SOLAR of Dublin) and more than 40 certified solar installers.

Where's our renewable energy plan?

-jsq