By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
What Happened: Quartz Media reports that “Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japanese multinational Softbank to build 200 GW of solar power by 2030 at a cost of $200 billion.”
- The math is pretty simple: The world’s current largest solar farm is the 1 GW Kurnool Ultra Mega Solar Park in India, which Quartz calculated covers 24 square miles.
- So if you multiply that by 200 – which is the factor bigger that the plant in Saudi Arabia would be – that would cover 5,000 square miles in total.
- Fortunately, Saudi Arabia can spare the land – 5,000 square miles is less than 1% of the country’s total area (830,000 square miles).
SolarWakeup’s View: Aw, now, Jenny (Chase) – why do you have to be like that? Why are you trying to stomp on the crown prince of Saudi Arabia’s solar dreams?
Chase, a well-respected solar analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, had a delightfully snarky comment on Twitter about Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s MOU with a Japanese bank to build a 200 GW solar plant at a cost of $200 billion: “I’ve probably made more binding agreements to grab a coffee.”
But frankly, I don’t care if the plan ever comes to fruition. The fact is that someone is dreaming big in a world that sometimes can seem increasingly, depressingly small.
And let’s get crazy for a moment: Let’s say Bin Salman’s dream isn’t just pie-in-the-sky. Let’s say he does it. Can you imagine what that could do for the solar industry? To have one of the most oil-rich countries in the world essentially change to solar in what effectively would be overnight? It would galvanize the solar industry worldwide, having implications far beyond its own borders.
I mean, let’s be honest: That’s a solar array future astronauts will be able to see from space. And it’s dreams like Bin Salman’s that drive the world’s progress forward, so let’s not just dismiss the prince’s plan out of hand.
Hell, it strikes me full of awe, and I’m maybe the most cynical person in the solar industry. So Jenny, you know I got your back – but for now, let’s let this dream linger until there’s a real reason to diss it.
(Oh, and I’m buying you a coffee at Intersolar North America if you’re there – you can take that agreement to the bank.)
More:
What Saudi Arabia’s 200 GW solar power plant would look like—if placed in your neighborhood
Bonus:
Because how, honestly, could I not?