Saudi Arabia energy major ACWA Power announced it is developing more than 1 GW of renewable energy projects in China. The company in reports published Dec. 31 said the portfolio includes solar and wind power installations that would be owned jointly by ACWA Power and Chinese renewable energy developers.

ACWA Power in a statement to Tadawul, the Saudi stock exchange, confirmed that the projects are sited across China and are in advanced stages of development. Yunhe Lyu, who leads ACWA’s operations in China, earlier in December said the company plans to invest as much as $50 billion to build renewable energy projects in that country by the end of this decade. Lyu said ACWA envisions as much as 20 GW of renewable energy generation capacity, along with development of green hydrogen projects.

“We have an ambitious target of investing up to $50 billion in green energy, renewable technologies, green hydrogen, and desalination projects by 2030,” Lyu said in an interview with the Bloomberg news service. “Our goal is to reach 1.3 GW of renewable energy capacity in China by the end of this year.”

ACWA Power is collaborating with Chinese companies on projects both in China and in other countries. The company is developing a wind project in Uzbekistan with China Southern Grid International. China’s State Power Investment Corp. is working with ACWA on power projects in Saudi Arabia.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Riyadh in 2022 kickstarted a program of economic collaboration between China and Saudi Arabia.  Officials have said that bilateral trade between the countries in 2023 hit $107.23 billion, as China exported $42.86 billion in goods to Saudi Arabia, while importing $64.37 billion of Saudi Arabian products, mostly crude oil and petrochemicals. The most recent figures, through August 2024, show trade between the two countries has totaled nearly $71 billion this year.

Officials on Tuesday said China is the leading direct investor in Saudi Arabia for greenfield projects, with much of that money supporting solar, wind, and battery energy storage installations.

—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.