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A consortium led by Japanese utility developer and investor Marubeni Corporation has awarded the main engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for a 700MW wind farm on the Red Sea coast of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia to Chinese contractor Sepco 3.

The 700MW Yanbu wind independent power producer (IPP) project, situated in Madinah Province, is the third such project tendered under the fourth round of Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Programme (NREP).

“The implementation of this project will provide strong support for Saudi Arabia to achieve the strategic goal of renewable energy accounting for about 50% by 2030, and it is of great strategic significance to help Saudi Arabia improve the economic benefits of power generation and promote the optimisation of Saudi Arabia’s energy structure,” Sepco 3 said in a statement.

In August last year, MEED reported that a team led by Marubeni and comprising local firm Abdulaziz Al-Ajlan Sons Company for Commercial & Real Estate Investment (Ajlan & Bros) was expected to win the contract to develop and operate the 700MW Yanbu wind IPP project.

Other competing teams that had submitted proposals for the contract to develop the project are understood to have been led by local utility developer Acwa Power and French firms Engie and EDF Renewables.

Marubeni and Ajlan & Bros won the contracts to develop the first two wind schemes of the NREP’s round four, the 600MW Al-Ghat and 500MW Waad Al-Shamal wind IPPs, in May last year.

The Marubeni/Ajlan & Bros consortium also appointed Power Construction Corporation of China (Power China) and Sepco 3 to undertake EPC works on the 600MW Al-Ghat and 500MW Waad Al-Shamal wind IPP projects.

World-record-low tariffs

The Marubeni-led consortium agreed to develop and operate the 600MW Al-Ghat wind IPP project with a world-record-low levelised electricity cost (LCOE) from wind power of 1.56558 $cents a kilowatt-hour (kWh), or about 5.87094 halalas/kWh.

The 500MW Waad Al-Shamal project also achieved a second world-record-low tariff for wind power of 1.70187 $cents/kWh or 6.38201 halalas/kWh, according to Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry.

The tariff achieved for Al-Ghat is almost 22% lower compared to the LCOE agreed for Saudi Arabia’s first wind IPP, the 400MW Dumat Al-Jandal scheme, which a team comprising the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) and France’s EDF Renewables won in 2019.

In early July, the Saudi Energy Ministry’s principal buyer signed a power purchase agreement for the 700MW Yanbu wind power project with the consortium of Marubeni and Ajlan & Bros. The stakeholders agreed to a tariff set at 1.72 $cents/kWh, which is 6.46 halalas/kWh.

READ THE JULY 2025 MEED BUSINESS REVIEW – click here to view PDF

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Distributed to senior decision-makers in the region and around the world, the July 2025 edition of MEED Business Review includes: