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9th May 2016

Saudi Arabia Vision 2030 -
Potential PV installations until 2023

Based on the latest publications related to Saudi Arabia Vision 2030 it is understood that the renewable energy target of 9.5 GW is planned to be met by 2023. See https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/saudi-arabia-announces-95-gw-renewable-energy-target-under-borgmann

This is clearly more challenging than the earlier assumptions to achieve this target until 2030, but it is still feasible as I like to show in the following. For this I compare the development which would be possible in Saudi-Arabia from 2017 until 2023 with the development of photovoltaic (PV) installations in Germany from 2003 until 2009.

As one can see in the figure the development in Germany was in 2003 still at a very low level below 150 MW per year. However, the annual installations ramped up so that by 2009 the cumulated installation of more than 10 GW over 7 years had been achieved. In 2009 the annual installation of PV in Germany was above 4 GW.

Based on the experience form Germany and assuming that the 9.5 GW target would be only achieved by PV installations one could imagine a steady development in Saudi Arabia similar to what we had seen in Germany. The orange curve shows how such growth or annual installation could look like to meet the 9.5 GW target by 2023.

Looking at this curve one can imagine that such a development could be just the beginning of an even faster growth in Saudi Arabia after 2023. The latest news give hope that such developments may be possible if the right policy frame work and conditions will be set up which allow renewable energies to compete on an equal level with oil in Saudi Arabia.