Five in the frame for SEC's PP11

Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) has announced that five consortiums have submitted bids to build, own and operate the US$3.2 billion Power Plant 11 (PP11) near Riyadh.

The cost of the project has risen from an estimated $2 billion, as the capacity has risen from 1,200MW to 2,000MW.

SEC chief executive Ali Al Barrak told Reuters that the plant would be operational by mid-2013.

PP11 is just the latest in a massive series of power plants located in the Central Operating Area, which already have a total capacity of 10,000MW.

Work on SEC’s $3 billion 2,000MW PP10 plant is well under way, and is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2011. A consortium consisting of Arabian Bemco Contracting, Nespak, Almabani and GE won that deal in 2008, and it seems a safe bet that some or all members of the consortium will be bidding for PP11 as well.

When PP10 and PP11 are both online, the Riyadh site will have a total capacity of 14,000MW.

To give an indication of the size of this group of power stations, altogether they will have the same electricity generating capacity as the $19.6 billion Itaipu Dam hydroelectricity project in Brazil.

The project with the largest electricity generating capacity in the world will be the Three Gorges dam hydroelectric development in China, will have a total capacity of 22,500MW when it is fully operational in 2011