Why Saudi Arabia Isn't Meeting Its Ambitious Solar Energy Targets - Bloomberg

Why Saudi Arabia Isn't Meeting Its Ambitious Solar Energy Targets - Bloomberg:

Around the world, high oil prices tend to accelerate the shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles. In Saudi Arabia, they have the opposite effect. Over the past six years, the Saudis have announced investments of more than $350 billion aimed at making the sun-drenched kingdom the, well, Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.

But virtually no construction has begun, and with crude more than doubling from early 2016 to this October, the Saudis’ commitment to renewable energy has wavered, says Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. “There has been a lot of stop and go,” Birol says. “There’s a need to increase electricity generation, decrease oil-based power, and make use of the huge solar potential.”

In 2012, the Kingdom introduced a $109 billion solar program intended to generate a third of its electricity from renewable energy by 2032. Two years ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced a plan to wean the kingdom from its dependency on oil exports by building 210 gigawatts of solar capacity, or more than 20 percent of today’s worldwide renewable energy output.