President of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE), Dr. Khaled Bin Saleh Al-Sultan has asserted that the Kingdom is working to build a sustainable renewable energy sector that includes industries, services, localization of technology and training and qualification of human cadres, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said on Saturday. The move is in line with the Kingdom's Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020 (NTP 2020). "Such a sector is built by identifying its main frameworks, finding a balanced mix of energy in the Kingdom through the introduction of renewable energy sources to achieve growth, prosperity and enhance energy security. The sources include solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, and the conversion of waste into energy," KACARE president said. He also pointed out that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the leading countries that is keen to gauge the needs of arid climatic regions to ensure introduction of renewable energy. The Kingdom has also worked on several initiatives on developing standards and specifications that suit the needs of countries with a similar climate to enable them to expand the sources of renewable energy in these countries. This came during the Kingdom's speech made by the President of KA-CARE and head of the Kingdom's delegation to the 10th session of the General Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) on Saturday, on the occasion of the inauguration of the current session. Al-Sultan drew attention to the fact that on the internal arena the Kingdom has presented several initiatives within the National Transformation Program 2020 (NTP 2020) aiming at activating (stimulating, catalyzing?) and enhancing (boosting?) the role of renewable energy in both the energy and economic systems, simultaneously. This is being done in an endeavor to increase the local content in the industrial and services chain, localizing technical know-how in it, investing it commercially, and training and qualifying the necessary human capital for operation. The Kingdom has fulfilled its commitment in creating a competitive local market for renewable energy. It laid down a clear methodology to ensure competitiveness of renewable energy, and provided the necessary financing through partnerships between the public and private sectors. The Kingdom has also worked on localizing a large segment of the renewable energy value chain, so as to catalyze the private sector and investors concerned with this field to invest in the renewable energy sector in the Kingdom. Al-Sultan stressed that the Kingdom is keen to contribute to the Agency's projects. These include Remap2030 Project that is in tandem with the Kingdom's Vision 2030, as it aims to increase the renewable energy share/stake in the world by the year 2030. — SPA
