TABUK — Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) and the US power giant General Electric signed on Tuesday a contract worth over SR4.5 billion to supply generating units for the Kingdom's first fossil fuel-fired power plant that will also produce solar energy. The 550-megawatt integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) plant will primarily burn natural gas, but will generate 50 MW of solar energy to increase fuel efficiency at the planned facility in Dibaa near Tabuk on the Red Sea coast. With the completion of the project by the end of 2017, Tabuk region will become the Kingdom's gateway to export electricity to Egypt, Turkey and other European countries, the Saudi Press Agency reported. The signing ceremony was held under the aegis of Tabuk Emir Prince Fahd Bin Sultan at his office. The ceremony was also attended by several officials, including Minister of Water and Electricity Abdullah Al-Husseyin, Chairman of the board of SEC Saleh Al-Awaji, and CEO of SEC Ziyad Al-Shiha. Speaking to reporters after the signing ceremony, Prince Fahd said that the government of Saudi Arabia is giving priority to electricity power generation. “In the Kingdom, electricity crises have become a past affair. We will have a better future and the signing of the contract is the best evidence for this,” he said. The Dibaa plant will have three generating units, two gas units and one steam unit with a total productive capacity of 550 megawatts and 50 megawatts of solar energy. The new high voltage direct current facility in Tabuk is expected to boost electricity transmission in the Kingdom's western region. ISCC plants reduce emissions of climate-warming carbon by increasing the amount of steam available for driving power generation turbines, without having to burn more gas or oil. In November 2013, SEC and General Electric had signed a nearly $700 million contract to bring additional F-class combined-cycle gas turbines, and associated equipment and services, to the Kingdom. Under the contract, GE's technology will support SEC's large, combined-cycle power plants to generate more than 3.8 gigawatts of power and will provide significant fuel savings and lower emissions to meet growing energy needs. The integrated Dibaa green plant and the project of multi-band transmission lines in Tabuk will have a total cost of more than SR10 billion.
