Renewable Energy Sites: Saudi Arabia Launches Geographical Survey Project

Saudi Arabia has initiated the Geographic Survey Project for Renewable Energy sites. As part of the significant project, contracts were awarded to Saudi companies to install 1,200 stations for measuring solar and wind energy across all regions of the Kingdom.

The project, part of the National Renewable Energy Program, will include all regions in Saudi Arabia by surveying over 850,000 square kilometers. According to a Saudi Press Agency report, it excludes populated areas, sand dune areas, and airspace restrictions. Prince AbdulAziz bin Salman bin AbdulAziz Al Saud, the Kingdom's Energy Minister, said in a statement that no other country has previously conducted a geographic survey of this kind on such an area scale. In the initial phase, the stations will survey the designated area, spreading into all regions, to identify suitable sites for renewable energy projects. The project's stations will then be moved to these locations in order to continually supply all necessary data, added the minister.

The solar energy measurement stations will be equipped with advanced measurement devices at ground level. It will record Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI), Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), diffuse horizontal irradiance (DHI), ground-reflected radiation (albedo), and ambient temperature. Meanwhile, wind energy measurement stations will record wind speed and direction, ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure, and relative humidity. The Energy Minister also stated that Saudi Arabia plans to launch new renewable energy projects this year with a capacity of 20 gigawatts annually. These projects aim to reach between 100 and 130 gigawatts by 2030, depending on electricity demand growth.