Gas trumps renewables in Saudi Arabian power

Saudi Arabia’s new energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, said last week that the country would no longer pursue a long-term target of producing 50% of its power from renewable energy and would instead focus on reaching 10%. He said a high renewables targets is less important now Saudi Arabia has decided to shift towards more gas-fired generation.

According to Saudi Arabia’s National Transformation Plan, which was unveiled last week, the country hopes to produce 4% of its energy from renewables by 2020. This will mean falling behind regional and global renewables targets.