Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa), Japan’s Jera and Saudi Arabia-based AlBawani have reached financial close on two greenfield combined-cycle gas turbine power plants in Riyadh and the Eastern Province.

The projects, Rumah 2 and Al-Nairyah 2, will deliver a combined capacity of 3.6GW.

The plants represent a $4bn (AED14.7bn) investment and will be developed on a build-own-operate basis.

The consortium has signed two 25-year power purchase agreements with Saudi Power Procurement Company, under the supervision of the Ministry of Energy.

Financing was secured from a consortium of regional and international banks through senior debt and equity bridge loans. Senior debt leverage exceeds 80%, reflecting lender confidence in the projects.

Participating banks include Al-Rajhi Bank, Riyad Bank, Saudi Awwal Bank, Saudi National Bank, Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Bank of China and First Abu Dhabi Bank.

Last November, MEED exclusively revealed that Harbin Electric International had been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contracts. The firm won the contracts as part of a joint venture with China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group.

In March, MEED reported that Germany-based Siemens Energy had been awarded a $1.6bn contract to supply six SGT6-9000HL gas turbines, four SST6-5000 steam turbines, eight SGen6-3000W generators, two SGen6-2000P generators and associated auxiliary equipment for each site.

The deal includes long-term maintenance agreements to support the plants’ operational reliability over the next 25 years.

Construction work on both projects has commenced and will be undertaken through special purpose entities owned by Taqa (49%), Jera (31%) and AlBawani (20%). Operation and maintenance will be carried out by companies set up under the same shareholding arrangement.

Construction on both projects is scheduled to be completed in 2028.