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Business Opportunity - King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy 

09-25-2017 12:31

Introduction and Background

King Abdullah City of Atomic & Renewable Energy (KACARE) is seeking expressions of interest, technical inputs and project development ideas from organizations that may be interested in participating in a future Request for Proposals (RFP). The resulting RFP will relate to demonstration projects on the use of microgrids for integrated energy generation, energy storage and thermal solutions.

KACARE will convene an industry-focused workshop on this topic in mid-November and anticipates releasing the RFP in January 2018. KACARE will support successful RFP projects through its cost-sharing program.

Potential locations for microgrids may include: isolated or remote communities; retail premises, off-grid communities or business premises; campuses, such as hospitals or education institutes; and groups of commercial or industrial premises. For the purpose of this RFI, community microgrids are defined as multi-user microgrids that are supported by a local community, business users, utilities, and building or site owners.

Project Overview

KACARE seeks to accelerate the development of community microgrids, with integrated Renewable Energy power sources, throughout Saudi Arabia. The motivations for this project include increasing the resilience of electricity supply, lowering future energy costs, and reducing carbon emissions caused by the dependence on diesel generation.

Isolated areas in Saudi Arabia (e.g. villages, mountainous or desert areas, and islands) have high electricity generation costs, due to the special challenges posed by their remoteness, difficult access, harsh climate and low population density. Electricity for lighting, heating & cooling, and desalination in those areas is generally delivered by:

  • The national electricity and water grids, which are expensive (or not economically viable) to extend to those areas, and difficult and costly to maintain.
  • Diesel-fueled power plants which have high costs of energy production and give rise to significant secondary costs (installation, operation & maintenance, service logistics and fuel transport), and increased CO2 emissions. 

Many remote areas would benefit from installing renewable energy generation capacity but integrated solutions are needed to ensure that the investment in isolated energy systems is resilient and reduces the dependence on fossil fuels. Therefore microgrid solutions should take account of intermittency of power generation, energy storage, district cooling, and small-scale water desalination and distribution.

In addition, microgrid solutions are also applicable even in the major urban areas of Saudi Arabia. Due to the fast-growing demand for electricity, substations supplying new developments are often sized inadequately to support the peak loads, so the site developers must take some energy management measures to supplement generation or shift demand, or both, to stay within the limits of the power supplied by the grid. Examples of these strategies can be found in housing developments, shopping malls, and industrial parks throughout the Kingdom. Microgrid solutions for these use cases will benefit developers and building/facility owners as well as the national electricity company by providing well- managed, localized energy generation and demand response to the national grid interface.

Inquiries

Download the full RFI PDF document below. Please direct responses and inquiries to abdulaziz.shehri@energy.gov.sa.



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RFI for Microgrids KACARE   341 KB   1 version
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RFI for Microgrids KACARE