Solar Frontier, a subsidiary of the Japanese Shell Group, Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K, is celebrating the six month performance of a 10.5MW array in Saudi Arabia.
The car park array is installed at Saudi Aramco's Al-Midra office complex in Dhahran, Eastern Province, and has generated 8,498MWh since December 2012. Aramco is a state-owned oil company responsible for producing around one in eight barrels of oil globally.
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According to geographical solar analyists, SolarGIS, the desert-durable CIS solar panels benefits from more than 1600kWh per square meter of solar radiation in Dhahran every year.
“This result is a milestone,” said Atsuhiko Hirano, senior vice president, Solar Frontier. “Our panels have performed well, making the overall economics of deployment in Saudi Arabia even more attractive.”
The car park array, which doubles as shade, spans more than 16 hectares, or 4,450 parking spaces – and provides 100% of the Al-Midra office complex’s daytime electricity usage.
