March 9, 2023: Saudi energy sector investor and developer ACWA Power said on March 2 it would lead a project to build a 1GW wind energy and BESS plant in Kazakhstan.
The project, in partnership with Kazakhstan’s energy ministry and the country’s Samruk-Kazyna sovereign wealth fund, marks ACWA’s entry into the Kazakh market with an initial investment of US$1.5 billion.
ACWA said all sides had signed a heads of agreement for the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2027 and will support an expansion of the use of renewable energy in the country.
In October 2021, ACWA announced it had hired Chinese firms Huawei and SEPCO3 to install what it said would be the largest energy storage system in the world, near a pilot ‘smart city’ that is due to be built on the coast of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia in 2025.