Saudi Arabia’s ENOWA unveils high voltage smart grid for NEOM
Smart city concept. Image courtesy 123rf
Saudi Arabian electric utility company and NEOM subsidiary ENOWA has announced development of a blueprint for a high-voltage smart grid “that has never been built in the world.”
This is according to ENOWA’s CEO Peter Terium, who in a video interview with Arab News on the side of COP28 said the blueprint will be applied to the NEOM region, a new urban area planned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be built in its northwestern Tabuk Province.
“We call it the concept of grid of microgrids on a high-voltage level and it allows us to reduce the footprint of the corridors by 50% and it allows us to bring the cost of undergrounding (…) down with more than 50%.”
According to the utility company’s chief, the blueprint marks a significant achievement in the energy transition landscape, “given the fact that what we do is, in principle, not very complex. It’s the size that makes it complex.”
Terium here refers to how, traditionally, smart grids are not that difficult to deploy as they are usually on smaller scale applications.
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However, ENOWA’s ‘grid of microgrids’ will be used to supply the NEOM region with 100% renewable energy, a sizeable task considering NEOM is expected to have a total planned area of 26,500 km² and nine to 10 million inhabitants.
It is this size, added Terium, which has made it a significant challenge to develop such a smart grid blueprint for NEOM. It also means the development is still at an early stage.
“Where we stand today in our infrastructure, I would say at about 5% and ramping up to 10% in the next 12 to 18 months to come. And this is because eventually NEOM is going to be a large undertaking and (…) we build the infrastructure in line with the growth of NEOM.”
ENOWA was launched in March 2022 by NEOM as a subsidiary company to coordinate the development of the regions energy and water systems, also providing the critical infrastructure for NEOM’s key projects, including THE LINE, Oxagon and Trojena.
ENOWA also represents NEOM as the principal shareholder in the world’s largest green hydrogen production plant in an equal joint venture with Air Products and ACWA Power.
Coming onstream in 2025, the green hydrogen will be exported and used in NEOM for a variety of solutions, including fuelling clean, autonomous electric vehicles.
