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Saudi Arabia’s Acwa has begun initial commercial operations at the Taiba 1 and Qassim 1 combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants.

In two separate disclosures to the Saudi stock exchange on 24 September, Acwa said both plants had commenced commercial operation under their respective power purchase agreements.

The plants have a combined generation capacity of about 3.8GW and are two of four projects procured under the first round of Saudi Arabia’s gas-fired independent power producer (IPP) programme by Saudi Power Procurement Company.

Taiba 1 is located in the western region of Saudi Arabia, around 100 kilometres (km) southeast of Medina, and Qassim 1 is located in the central region, about 30km southeast of Buraydah.

A team of Saudi Energy, formerly Saudi Electricity Company, and Acwa won the contract to develop and operate the projects in 2023.

The developer team subsequently appointed Sepco 3 as the project’s EPC contractor.

In March 2024, Sepco 3 awarded South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility a contract to supply steam turbines and generators for the two plants. Later that year, US-headquartered GE Vernova announced it had also secured gas turbine orders for the plants.

The other two plants in round one (Taiba 2 and Qassim 2) are under construction after reaching financial close in 2024.

As exclusively reported by MEED, round three of Saudi Arabia’s gas-fired IPP programme is now under way, with developers submitting statements of qualification at the end of August.

US/India-based Synergy Consulting is the financial adviser for the procurement; Germany’s Fichtner is the technical adviser, and UK-headquartered Eversheds Sutherland is the legal adviser.