Saudi Bin Omairah to raise solar panel production, expand exports - report

Saudi Arabia's Bin Omairah Holding is seeking to expand exports of solar panels from its factory in the Tabuk region to Europe and Africa and plans to open another plant for solar panels within the next two or three years, the company's business development manager told newspaper Asharq.

The plant known as Masdar Solar, which opened last November in Tabuk, northwestern Saudi Arabia, is currently operating with a capacity of 150 MW and a second production line will be commissioned in mid-2022 to raise the output to 450 MW by the end of the year, Mohammed bin Omairah told Asharq. When completed, the factory will have a capacity of 1.2 GW. The construction of the plant, considered to be the largest in the Middle East and North Africa, costs SAR 700 million (USD 186.6m/EUR 164.3m). The glass and frames for the production of solar panels are procured from the local market while the cells are imported from Italy, Spain and China.

The solar panels manufactured at Masdar Solar are already exported to Tunisia and Jordan and new markets in the MENA region and Europe will be entered this year, Bin Omairah noted. The factory aims to supply solar panels to Neom, a cross-border city planned on the Red Sea coast about 200 km (124.3 mi) away from Masdar Solar.

The manager unveiled also a plan to build a second factory for solar panels in two or three years with twice the production capacity of the plant in Tabuk.

(SAR 1.0 = USD 0.266/EUR 0.234)

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