- The latest financial center of Saudi Arabia, the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), will be reducing its dependence on the Kingdom’s oil reserves and will be relying on solar technology from Conergy for a portion of its energy requirements.
- By installing a solar system on the roofs of — the first solar rooftop plant in Riyadh — the KAFD is choosing sustainable architecture with the aim of achieving one of the most significant eco certifications in the world: The “LEED Gold” certification awarded by the US Green Building Council.
At close to 200 kilowatts, the solar plant will not only be the first but also the largest rooftop plant in Riyadh. In collaboration with its local partner Modern Times Technical Systems (MTTS), Conergy will be installing over 800 Conergy PowerPlus 230M modules on some 1.7 kilometers of Conergy SunTop III mounting systems over a surface of 1,300 sqm. The 330 megawatt hours of clean energy generated each year — which could supply 1,500 computers in the financial center — will be fed into the power grid of the metropolis via 14 string inverters. The solar plant will prevent the emission of 180 tons of the damaging greenhouse gas CO2 annually once it is connected to the grid by the first quarter of this year.
Conergy is providing support to companies in the Middle East on this new path towards sustainability. “The KAFD is no doubt an ecological pioneer, who we commend for playing this role,” says Alexander Lenz, Conergy President of South East Asia and the Middle East. “With its environmentally friendly architecture, the KAFD demonstrates how the Saudi financial sector can reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.”