Saudi Arabia has revealed plans to generate 9.5GW of electricity from renewable energy by 2030.
The latest economic reform is part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan, which aims to relieve the country’s dependence on oil.
Part of the plan was quoted by state news agency SPA as saying: "Even though we have an impressive natural potential for solar and wind power, and our local energy consumption will increase threefold by 2030, we still lack a competitive renewable sector at present."
"To build up the sector, we have set ourselves an initial target of generating 9.5GW of renewable energy. We will also seek to localise a significant portion of the renewable energy value chain in the Saudi economy, including research and development, and manufacturing, among other stages."
In an interview with Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel, deputy crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that shares worth less than 5% of the state-owned oil company Aramco will be sold, BBC reported.
He added that up to $2.5tn of the proceeds from the share sale of Aramco will be used towards a $2tn sovereign wealth fund, as outlined in the Vision 2030 plan.
In 2012, Saudi Arabia planned to install 17GW of nuclear power and around 41GW of solar capacity by 2032.
