Policy & markets · Middle East
NREP Round 7: The 5.3 GW Saudi Tender Now Waiting on Award
Bids for Saudi Arabia's 5.3 GW seventh renewable round closed on 14 September. The six projects, the qualified bidders, and what the industry is waiting for next.
The bid window on Saudi Arabia's seventh renewable energy round closed on 14 September 2026. With submissions in, the National Renewable Energy Program's largest recent tranche moves to evaluation and award — and the supply chain that serves it starts planning around an outcome nobody has announced yet.
This is a status brief rather than a scoop. Arcnex is setting out what is established about Round 7, what varies between sources, and what a developer, EPC contractor or component supplier should actually be watching.
What Round 7 covers
The round is procured by the Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), the single buyer for generation capacity in the Kingdom, under the National Renewable Energy Program. Total capacity is approximately 5.3 GW, split roughly 3.1 GW solar and 2.2 GW wind.
The solar projects:
- Tabarjal, Al Jouf — 1.4 GW
- Mawqaq, Hail — 600 MW
- Tathleeth, Asir — 600 MW
- South Al Ula, Madinah — 500 MW
The wind projects, both in the Madinah region:
- Bilghah — 1.3 GW
- Shagran — 900 MW
One thing worth flagging for anyone searching procurement records: the names and the packaging are not consistent across sources. Tabarjal appears as a single 1.4 GW project in some coverage and as two separate 0.7 GW portfolio projects in others, which is why the round is described as having four solar projects in one place and five in another. Transliteration also varies — Tabarjal and Tarbajal, Bilghah and Blighah, Aseer and Asir. If a search returns nothing, try the alternate spelling before concluding a project does not exist.
The timeline so far
SPPC opened the request for qualification in September 2025. Qualified bidders for the solar projects were announced in January 2026 — Enerdata and pv magazine both carried the list.
The bid submission deadline was then extended from 14 July 2026 to 14 September 2026, an extension MEED reported. Deadline extensions on rounds this size are routine rather than a warning sign; they usually reflect the time consortia need to close financing terms and firm up equipment pricing.
What has not been established publicly, and what we are not going to guess at: the award date, the PPA term, and the tariffs bid. Any of those circulating as fact before SPPC announces them should be treated as speculation.
Who qualified
Reporting put the solar-side qualified list at 22 companies — 16 qualified as managing and technical members, and six as managing members only. That distinction matters commercially: a managing member brings equity and development capability, while a managing and technical member is also credited with the technical track record to lead delivery.
Named among them were Masdar, EDF, Engie, Sembcorp Utilities, Jinko Power (HK), TotalEnergies Renewables, KEPCO and SPIC Shanghai Electric Power, alongside Saudi developers.
The composition tells you something about where Gulf utility-scale procurement now sits. This is a field of international IPP developers and Chinese and Korean state-linked players competing on cost of capital as much as on engineering. It is not a market a newly-arrived developer enters at the prime contractor level. How competitive procurement of this kind is structured in general is set out in renewable energy auctions explained, and the two smallest Gulf programmes in Kuwait and Bahrain.
What this means if you are not a bidder
Most companies reading a tender story are not bidding for it. They want to supply into it. The structure matters, because it determines who you actually need to reach.
SPPC does not buy your equipment. It contracts with the project company for power under a long-term offtake arrangement. Modules, inverters, transformers, trackers, cabling, balance of plant and construction labour are all procured by the winning consortium, through its own EPC arrangements and subject to whatever local content obligations attach to the project.
The practical consequence for a supplier is that the award announcement is your starting gun, not the tender. Until a consortium wins, there is no buyer to qualify with. Once it does, procurement decisions follow quickly and the vendors already registered and pre-qualified are the ones in the conversation.
That argues for doing the qualification work now rather than after the announcement. We set out what that involves in qualifying as a renewable energy supplier in Saudi Arabia.
What to watch next
Four things would each change the picture materially:
- The award announcement, naming the winning consortium for each project.
- The tariffs, which set the benchmark every subsequent round is measured against — and which have driven the regional cost narrative we examine in why solar is cheap in the Middle East.
- Local content requirements attached to the awards, which determine how much of the supply chain has to be Saudi-based.
- Grid connection and substation scope, since transmission works are procured separately and can gate a project's schedule.
For the wider programme context — targets, structure and how NREP fits Vision 2030 — see Saudi Arabia's renewable energy strategy, and for the storage layer increasingly attached to these projects, battery storage in the Middle East.
A note on sourcing
Arcnex has not seen SPPC's tender documents. Everything above is drawn from SPPC announcements as reported by established trade and wire outlets, and we have said where sources disagree rather than picking the tidier version.
If you are bidding or supplying, the tender documentation is the authority — not this article and not any other press summary. What reporting is good for is telling you when something has moved so you know to go and check.
Follow Gulf procurement with the stage attached
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- Follow our Middle East energy coverage for tenders, awards and policy as they land.
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ANSWERS
Questions answered in this story
What is NREP Round 7?
The seventh procurement round under Saudi Arabia's National Renewable Energy Program, run by the Saudi Power Procurement Company. It covers approximately 5.3 GW across four solar sites and two wind sites, with roughly 3.1 GW of solar and 2.2 GW of wind.
Which projects are in Round 7?
On the solar side, Tabarjal in Al Jouf (1.4 GW, packaged as two 0.7 GW projects in some documentation), Mawqaq in Hail (600 MW), Tathleeth in Asir (600 MW) and South Al Ula in Madinah (500 MW). On the wind side, Bilghah (1.3 GW) and Shagran (900 MW), both in Madinah.
When did bids close for Round 7?
The submission deadline was extended from 14 July 2026 to 14 September 2026. That date has now passed and the round is awaiting award.
Who qualified to bid?
Reporting on the solar projects put the qualified list at 22 companies, including Masdar, EDF, Engie, Sembcorp Utilities, Jinko Power (HK), TotalEnergies Renewables, KEPCO and SPIC Shanghai Electric Power, alongside Saudi developers. Sixteen qualified as managing and technical members and six as managing members.
How do suppliers get work on these projects?
Not through SPPC. SPPC contracts with the project company; modules, inverters, transformers, balance of plant and construction are procured by whichever consortium wins, under its own supply chain and local content obligations. The commercial route for a supplier runs through the winning developer and its EPC contractor.
