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Team taps Chinese firms for Taiba 2 and Qassim 2

5 January 2024

A developer team led by local utility developer Al-Jomaih Energy & Water Company (Jenwa) has tapped a group of Chinese companies for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract of the Taiba 2 and Qassim 2 independent power producer (IPP) projects in Saudi Arabia.

It is understood the EPC contractors comprise China Energy Construction International Group, Guangdong Engineering Institute and Zhejiang Thermal Power.

Each of the two combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants will have a power generation capacity of 1,800MW.

In November, the developer team, which includes France’s EDF and the local Buhur for Investment, signed a 25-year power-purchase agreement with the principal buyer, Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), for the Taiba 2 and Qassim 2 IPP projects.

MEED understands that the Al-Jomaih-led consortium has partnered with Germany’s Siemens Energy for the supply of CCGT units for the projects.

Taiba 1 and Qassim 1

Separately, Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) and Saudi utility developer Acwa Power won the contract to develop and operate the 1,800MW Qassim 1 and 1,800MW Taiba 1 IPP projects.

According to a previous filing by Acwa Power on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), the two projects are valued at SR14.6bn ($3.9bn).

China’s Sepco 3 will undertake the EPC contract for the Qassim 1 and Taiba 1 IPP projects, as MEED previously reported.

US-based GE will supply the CCGT for the power plants. 

SPPC announced the winning bidders that will develop and maintain four new thermal IPP projects in the kingdom in October last year.

It has yet to disclose the levelised electricity costs submitted by the bidders for the contracts. The four CCGT plants are valued at a combined estimate of SR29.2bn.

Each project will be developed on a build, own and operate basis by the winning consortiums, which will be 100 per cent owned by the successful bidders.

According to SPPC, the project will use the latest turbines, allowing the Saudi utility company to utilise carbon-capture technologies.

Packaged initially as two individual IPPs, each with a capacity of 3,600MW, the two projects have been split into four smaller schemes.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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