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Saudi Arabia to Launch 4 New Solar Projects within Renewable Energy Program

A Saudi man looks at the solar plant in Uyayna, north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 10, 2018. (Reuters)
A Saudi man looks at the solar plant in Uyayna, north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 10, 2018. (Reuters)
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Saudi Arabia to Launch 4 New Solar Projects within Renewable Energy Program

A Saudi man looks at the solar plant in Uyayna, north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 10, 2018. (Reuters)
A Saudi man looks at the solar plant in Uyayna, north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 10, 2018. (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia is about to launch four giant projects to produce solar photovoltaic systems within a national renewable energy program.

The Kingdom’s Energy Ministry issued a request for qualifications from companies looking to take part in the third round of its national renewable energy program, according to a statement released by Saudi Press Agency.

The third round includes four solar photovoltaic projects with a combined generation capacity of 1,200 MW, according to the statement.

In March 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, signed a MoU with Masayoshi Son, Chairman of the Softbank Vision Fund, to establish the largest solar energy project in the Kingdom, which will produce 200 GW at a cost of USD 200 billion.

Eng. Faisal Al-Yemni, Head of the Renewable Energy Projects Development Office (REPDO) stated that the projects within Round Three will carry a minimum requirement of 17 percent local content as calculated by the mechanism defined by the Local Content and Government Procurement Authority, which aims to increase the value-added contribution of products and services in the national economy, according to the statement.

Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Program (NREP) is a long-term, multifaceted renewable energy program designed to balance the domestic power mix, in parallel with the implementation of the Kingdom’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to avoid carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, directly supporting Vision 2030.

The National Renewable Energy Program aims to substantially increase the share of renewable energy in the power energy mix.

On July 18, 2019, REPDO launched Round Two of the NREP, which comprised six solar PV projects amounting to 1,470 MW. The deadline for receiving proposals for Round Two projects is Jan. 20, 2020, and Feb. 3, 2020, for categories B and A respectively.

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US Labor Market Slows Despite Job Adds in May

Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
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US Labor Market Slows Despite Job Adds in May

Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

The United States added 139,000 jobs in May, more than expected but pointing to a labor market that continues to slow.

The employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded forecasts for about 120,000 payroll gains but marked a decline from the revised 147,000 jobs added in April. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, remaining near historic lows.

Stocks surged at Friday's open, with all three major indexes gaining about 1%.

In return, US government borrowing costs climbed as investors anticipated the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates higher for longer, making it less attractive to hold US debt.

The BLS report showed job losses in the federal government continued to pile up, with that sector shedding 22,000 roles in May alone.

The federal workforce is down by 59,000 since January, largely due to sweeping cuts by the Trump administration and multibillionaire tech executive Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency project.

Even as the economy continued to add jobs at a relatively steady clip last month, the report showed other signs of a weakening labor market.

The ratio of employed workers to the total population fell to 59.7%, its lowest since the pandemic.

An alternative measure of unemployment that includes “discouraged” workers, or those who have stopped looking for work, returned to a post-pandemic high of 4.5%.

But President Donald Trump cheered the numbers, posting on his Truth Social platform Friday morning: “AMERICA IS HOT! SIX MONTHS AGO IT WAS COLD AS ICE! BORDER IS CLOSED, PRICES ARE DOWN. WAGES ARE UP!”

Trump had urged Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to slash interest rates by a full percentage point.

“Too Late' at the Fed is a disaster!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

In reality, employers added 212,000 jobs in November, unemployment was at 4.1%, the 12-month average of hourly pay gains have softened from nearly 4.2% then to 3.9% in May, and both the labor force participation rate and the employment-to-population ratio were slightly higher.

Only consumer prices have meaningfully cooled, ticking down from an annual inflation rate of 2.7% in November to 2.3% in April, the latest month with available data.

Analysts at Capital Economics called the May jobs report “not as good as it looks.”

Still, they wrote in a note Friday, “it shows that tariffs are having little negative impact” and added that the Federal Reserve is likely to continue holding interest rates steady “while it assesses the effects of policy changes on the economy.”