Saudis look to solar as oil, gas consumption grows

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia leads OPEC members in terms of proven oil reserves and has proven gas reserves of 248.3 trillion cubic feet. Saudi Arabia's consumption of petroleum products is growing 5% annually, and gas consumption is growing 7% annually.

However, Minister of Petroleum Ali Al-Naimi reports that the country's oil and gas production is growing only 3.6% annually.

Saudi Arabia has the highest annual gas consumption of OPEC members. The country uses 35% of all gas consumed for electricity generation and 20% for water desalination. The remainder is used for petrochemical manufacturing and other domestic industries.

The difference between the country's production and consumption has encouraged the Saudi energy sector to begin developing alternative sources of energy to achieve energy sustainability. The use of alternative forms of energy will also lead to an increase in petroleum and natural gas exports. Dr. Turki bin Saud bin Mohammad, vice president of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, said, "The solar-energy program will reduce the cost of producing desalinated water and of generating power for use in the Kingdom, an oil-dependent nation, which has launched a national energy efficiency program."

Saudi Arabia would like to apply solar energy primarily toward electricity generation and water desalination. The sun emits 7,000 watts of energy per square meter for an average of 12 hours per day in the country.

A demonstration program to exploit solar energy was developed at King Abdallah University to meet the water and electricity requirements in the student housing buildings through solar power.

Furthermore Japanese oil refiner Showa Shell Sekiyu and Saudi Arabian state oil company Saudi Aramco (Riyadh) are interested in constructing their own solar demonstration projects to build a joint venture commercial plant.

Showa-Shell-Aramco will build a pilot plant next year to conduct studies on the project, which involves building a series of facilities with a generation capacity of 1 to 2 megawatts to serve Saudi communities that do not have access to electricity networks.