Saudi Arabia has already started implementing an agreement with SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund to provide 200 gigawatts of solar power in the kingdom, energy minister Khalid al-Falih said at a post-budget event. The kingdom’s Public Investment Fund agreed to invest $45 billion in the giant tech fund led by SoftBank and the pair are working with other parties on a number of large-scale, multi-billion dollar projects relating to the solar industry. The PIF and private sector will fund renewable energy projects in the kingdom, Falih said. SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son had announced in March a plan to invest in creating the world’s biggest solar power project in Saudi Arabia, a project expected to have the capacity to produce up to 200 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. In October, SoftBank said it was working closely with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund on a solar power-generation project, dismissing a Wall Street Journal report that it had shelved the project. “Progress continues to be in line with expectations for a project of this scale and complexity,” a SoftBank spokesman said in a written statement then.
Saudi Arabia's energy minister has said that the country has begun to implement an agreement with SoftBank's Vision Fund to develop 200 GW worth of solar projects. Khalid al-Falih said that Saudi Arabia, which has agreed to put $45bn from its public investment fund into the scheme, was already in the process of developing the plan, contradicting a report in October that SoftBank had abandoned the project.