The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC) has selected the Acwa Power/China Energy consortium as the preferred bidder for the first phase of the Red Sea Development project. 

The winning consortium beat the other bid led by Engie, Masdar, Power China, both submitting their offer on August 31. 

The project package to be developed under PPP basis, will provide utility services including: renewables energy and storage, desalination, sewage and waste, and district cooling and other infrastructure and facilities. This utilities will be integrated in to the Red Sea Project, a sustainability-based high-end tourism megaproject being developed under Saudi’s Vision 2030.

Under this first phase of the Red Sea PPP, to be launched in 2022, power generation capacity will be needed to meet a maximum demand of 197MW. The first phase is expected to generate power from solar photovoltaic (PV), wind energy, energy storage batteries and emergency biofuel power.

For water production, two seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants with a capacity of 30,000 cubic meters per day will be developed. The demand will be divided between drinking water, 21,000 cm/d, and the irrigation supplement, 9,000 cm/d.

The first phase of the development will include 14 luxury hotels offering 3,000 rooms on five islands and two inland locations. It will also include entertainment facilities, an airport and the necessary support logistics.