I attended the first and second day of the SWPF 2012. This is the main event for Power and Water industry in Saudi Arabia, which is being held in the Jeddah Hilton hotel.
The event gathers many of the local utility, regulatory, governmental, financing and investing entities as well International investors, manufacturers & developers.
This year there seems to be a strong focus on waste water re-use, indeed this dominated the discussions in the first day of the event. Apparently, more than 80% of fresh water demand is consumed by agriculture, which utilizes non-renewable ground water which is estimated will last only 20 years at current consumption rates.
The National Water Company (NWC) has a dedicated division charged with re-using and selling as much treated waste water as possible, especially for irrigation purposes. To support this initiative the Saudi Government passed a law that no further well (ground water) licences shall be granted if treated waste water is available.
In the second day, the focus fully shifted to Renewable Energy. The discussion involved KACARE, SWCC and other prominent guests. A lot of focus was given to "Solar Desalination" the Governor of SWCC even went as far as claiming the Saudi Arabia has the best environment and conditions to make Solar Desalination a success, he sighted their Khafji plant (30,000 m3/day PV-RO) which is currently under construction as the first step in this direction.
KACARE also outlined their vision for Saudi Arabia to have a more diversified energy supply mix with 17.6 GW Nuclear, 25 GW CSP, 16 GW PV, 9 GW Wind, 1 GW Geothermal, 3 GW Waste-to-energy all by 2032.
KACARE were very clear of their preference for CSP over PV, as it is believed that CSP has the greatest potential over the long term for cost reduction and creation of a more dynamic economic sector. Indeed, it is their vision that Saudi Arabia will be the world leader in CSP implementation and development.
Although no firm road map has yet been proposed on how to achieve these energy targets, however, it was hinted that Renewable Energy projects would be introduced through a mix of Feed-in Tariff for minor supply quantities and take-or-pay concessions by a credit worthy off-taker for larger capacities.
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