The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plans to derive 10 per cent of its electrical supply from the sun by 2020 and eventually emerge as the world’s largest source of solar energy. The Saudi government hopes that the country will be able to generate five gigawatts of solar energy by 2020 in order to meet this target.
The government hopes that the Kingdom’s nascent solar industry will create up to 15,000 jobs and is encouraging the development of solar farms, plants for processing of raw materials and assembly, and other related facilities. Investors have already pledged more than USD 3 billion to fund solar panel component plants in Al Madinah province’s Yanbu port and in Jubail city in the Eastern province. Furthermore, a USD 380 million polysilicon plant is to be built along the Gulf Coast and will initially be able to produce 3,350 metric tons of solar-grade polysilicon by 2014.