Saudi Arabia's Renewable Project Development Office (Repdo) is planning to shortlist bidders for the category B projects under the second round of its National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP) by the week eneding 12 March.

According to sources close to the project, Repdo is planning to shortlist preferred bidders in the second week of March, with the aim of signing the power purchase agreements (PPAs) next month.

Energy & Utilities reported in January that four groups had submitted proposals for the four Category B projects under the second round, which will have a combined total capacity of 1.4GW.

The groups which submitted bids are:

• Acwa Power (local)/ GIC (Kuwait)

• Marubeni (Japan)

• Masdar (UAE)/ EDF (France)/ Nessma (local)

• Total (France)/ Al-Gihaz (local)

Second round projects (Category B)

• Al-Faisaliah solar IPP; PV solar Mecca Province 600MW

• Jeddah solar IPP PV; solar Jeddah Province 300MW
  

• Rabigh solar IPP PV;solar Mecca Province 300 MW
  

• Qurayyat solar IPP; PV solar Al-Jawf Province 200 Bidding
  

Repdo prequalified 60 firms to participate in the bidding process for the second round of the NREP. The prequalified firms include managing partners, technical members and local managing members for category A projects and managing and technical members for category B schemes.

Repdo’s advisers for the second and third rounds are Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) as lead and financial adviser, Germany’s Fichtner as technical adviser and the UK’s DLA Piper as legal adviser.

Repdo recently invited developers to prequalify for the third round of the NREP, which is planned to include four PV solar projects with a total combined capacity of 1.2GW. Developers have until 6 February to submit prequalification documents.

Saudi Arabia has set an ambitious target to install 58.7GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, with Repdo to oversee the development of 30 per cent of this though a competitive IPP tendering programme

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