Saudi Arabia: Using Oil Taxes for Solar Research

Greener.Ideal

Saudi Arabia may be known for its controversial conservative views and huge oil resources, but little is known about the fact that they are heavily investing in renewable technology that will change the way they use their fossil fuel resources in the future.

The use of renewable and clean energy is taking a boom in America, but it is a process that will take decades. But nowadays, other countries are taking advantage of those opportunities and Saudi Arabia has joined the movement of investing in clean energies, especially solar energy.

Currently, Saudi Arabia burns 850 million barrels of oil each year. This represents almost ⅓ of its total production. Due to this, they have decided to make some ambitious plans for a massive investment in renewable energy projects. The first installations should be completed throughout the year 2013.

The goal of this project would be to take advantage of Saudi Arabia’s huge amount of sunlight, and create at least 25,000 megawatts of electricity coming from solar plants, which they will use gigantic mirror arrays to focus the sun rays in a really concentrated ray that will heat the fluid into steam to power up turbine generators.

Additionally, it is expected to create at least 16,0000 megawatts of capacity by using large arrays of PV solar cells, which are falling in price due to the high demand that comes from China.

Saudi Arabia will also add additional 21,000 megawatts a year from other renewable sources of energy such as wind, geothermal, and nuclear plants.

This investment will cost the country $109 billion, which the country is currently looking for investors.