Register for MEED's 14-day trial access 

The project company implementing the 600MW Shuaibah solar photovoltaic (PV) project in Saudi Arabia has received a commercial operation certificate from the principal buyer, Saudi Power Procurement Company.

According to Saudi-listed utility developer Acwa Power, which owns a 35.01% interest in the company, it expects the project's financial impact in Q4 this year.

Shuaibah 1 was originally tendered as Faisaliah solar independent power project (IPP), under the second round of the kingdom's National Renewable Energy Programme.

In 2020, a team that originally comprised Acwa Power, Kuwait's Gulf Investment Corporation and the local Al-Babtain Contracting Company offered a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of $cents1.04 a kilowatt-hour ($c/kWh) for the Shuaibah solar IPP, which broke the world record in terms of unsubsidised solar PV production cost.

It bested a record previously held by the 1,500MW Al-Dhafra solar PV IPP in Abu Dhabi, which is being developed at an LCOE of $c1.35/kWh.

Public Investment Fund (PIF)-backed Badeel and Saudi Aramco now maintain 34.99% and 30%, respectively, in the project company implementing Shubaih 1 and the larger Shuaibah 2, which the PIF awarded to an Acwa Power-led team as part of the sovereign wealth entity's bilateral renewable energy procurement programme.

Acwa Power and Badeel signed the power-purchase agreements for the 2,060MW Shuaibah 2 solar power project in December 2022.

The project company comprising Acwa Power, Badeel and Aramco announced reaching financial close for both projects in August 2023, about two years after the original team announced it had reached financial close for Shuaibah 1 and another round-two scheme called Qurayyat, which has a capacity of 200MW.