Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power International signed Jordan’s lowest-cost solar energy project as demand for power from the sun grows.
The 61-megawatt solar power plant will provide electricity at 5.88 cents per kilowatt hour, Paddy Padmanathan, chief executive officer of Riyadh-based ACWA Power, said in an interview in Abu Dhabi. The contract signed Monday is for 20 years, and is the lowest cost for electricity ever in Jordan, he said. ACWA Power will develop, finance, construct, own and operate the project, its second solar photovoltaic plant in Jordan, it said in a statement.
With electricity demand growing 7 percent a year in Jordan, according to ACWA Power, the kingdom is trying to boost power supplies from renewable energy. The kingdom hopes to generate about 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2020, Jordan’s Energy Minister Ibrahim Saif said in an interview in Abu Dhabi.
The Risha plant, in eastern Jordan, will be designed to provide power for 12,000 households, and is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2019, ACWA Power said in the statement.