Renewable Portfolio Standard to Achieve Solar Photovoltaic 40 GW, Vision 2030 Targets In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: An Early Assessment

Energy plays a vital role in the development of any country and for most socio-economic activities. With looming oil prices higher per capita power consuming countries are considering for alternative energy sources to reduce the higher utilization of fossil fuel in their electricity sector and scaling up the deployment of renewable energy technologies (RETs), thereby contributing to sustainable development and climate mitigation objectives. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) recognizes the importance of diversified energy mix with the dissemination of renewable energy technologies to its long-term economic prosperity. On January 9, 2019, Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO) Saudi Arabia has promulgated the revised targets of its Vision 2030 to deploy approximately 58.7 GW of RE project with maximum penetration of 40 GW of solar photovoltaics (PV) power plants. In order to the successful implementation of KSA vision 2030 solar PV targets, an effective policy instruments in a combination of economic optimization and technology localization (TL) factors must be taken into account to implement KSA vision 2030 in its true spirit. Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is one of the policy instruments used to support augmented development of renewable energy technology in any country. RPS is one of the successful policy instruments, which is being opted by USA (different States) EU different countries, China and many other countries for successful deployment of RETs in their countries for achieving their RE targets successfully. The objective of this proposal is to investigate the impact of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, develop strawman roadmap and help KSA regulatory authorities, retail electricity providers (National Grid) and power generation companies (SEC, ARAMCO, SWCC, PCPC, etc...) to opt it and encourage them for technology development and ultimately make renewable energy specifically solar photovoltaic economical source of energy as compare to conventional electric power generation system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.