Saudi Arabia's private utility Acwa Power will develop a $677.3 million desalination plant on the kingdom's Red Sea coast, as it continues to bid for new projects. The Riyadh-based utility signed a water purchase agreement with Saudi Water Partnership to develop the Rabigh 4 stand-alone water plant.

SWPC is the government off-taker and sole buyer of services for the project. Acwa Power said the reverse osmosis plant will serve the Mecca and Medina regions, where demand typically increases significantly during Ramadan and the Hajj pilgrimage season.

We anticipate that Rabigh 4 will serve directly pilgrims from the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from around the world, and families in the wider region, said Abdulrahman Al-Fadli, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture. We want this project to demonstrate how the private sector can improve service quality, achieve investment efficiency and foster innovation – all goals of Vision 2030.

Acwa Power has won the contract for the Rabigh 4 project, which has a capacity of 600,000 cubic meters per day, after responding to a request for bids from an off-taker. Acwa Power currently operates 16 desalination plants in four countries, including 10 in Saudi Arabia, where the company meets 30% of the country's water needs.

In 2022, Acwa Power added 5.44 gigawatts of power generation capacity and 600,000 cubic meters of seawater desalination capacity per day in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Uzbekistan following the signing of new agreements, the most in a single year in the company's history once.

Financial close for the Rabigh 4 project is expected in the third quarter of 2023 and the plant is expected to be operational in 2026. Khalid Al Quraishi, CEO of SWPC, said Rabigh 4 is designed to use less electricity, reduce operating costs and support local content in supply chains and employment.

Acwa Power operates in 12 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and South East Asia. It has 68 projects in operation or at advanced stages of development, with an investment value of SAR 256.5 billion, capable of generating 44.4 GW of electricity and managing 6.2 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day. Last month, the company also announced that it had signed a partnership agreement with Kazakhstan’s energy ministry and Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna, to lead the development of a 1GW wind and battery storage project in the Central Asian country.Editor/XingWentao