Every Last Joule · Region record

Saudi Arabia (solar)

Provenance, tier, and validation record for saudi-solar. No live curtailment figures on this page — those are on the globe.

Region id: saudi-solar
Country: SAU
Waste modality: Solar
Coordinates: 25.50° N, 46.50° E

Estimated Data quality

Tier

estimated · T3-modelled

No live feed and no published total for this region. A typical-shape profile is scaled to a capacity-based or literature anchor.

Modelled profile, scaled to annual (±40%)

Uncertainty

±40% of peak GW

Published envelope for this tier. See the uncertainty model.

Source provenance

modelled-fallback · No verified upstream link

There is no verified upstream link. The snapshot is a typical-shape profile scaled to an anchor, or otherwise estimated.

Source

GASTAT 2024 (5.2% curtailment ~0.8 TWh; grid constraints vs Sudair/Sakaka/NEOM scale-up). Gemini-3.1 research wave 4 (2026-04-30).

https://www.stats.gov.sa/

Tier, provenance, and source are read at build time from src/lib/regions.ts — the same table the globe draws from. The validation record below is generated separately and gated against it by npm run ci:docs-drift.

Validation record

Last updated: 2026-08-20 · Sprint: S1 + HB integration · Paper section: Technical Validation §4.2

Source

Region id: saudi-solar
Country: SAU
Tier: estimated
Kind: solar
Source: GASTAT 2024 (5.2% curtailment ~0.8 TWh; grid constraints vs Sudair/Sakaka/NEOM scale-up). Gemini-3.1 research wave 4 (2026-04-30).
Source URL: https://www.stats.gov.sa/
Loader: saudi-solar.json.ts
Structural gap: no

Calibration

Rate source documented in: docs/methodology/ (see links below)
Uniform across backfill years: n/a — no backfill

Multi-year backfill annual totals

Year	Backfill rows	Backfill annual TWh	Published TSO annual TWh	Δ %	Source
(no backfill or TSO anchors yet — will be populated after HB fan-out completes)

Published anchors

TSO annual curtailment (latest published): SEC 2024 PV curtailment ~0.1 TWh (early-stage)
Ember annual: —
IRENA annual: —
Other: —

Discrepancy analysis

No backfill and no TSO anchor. Region relies solely on the live snapshot; nothing to triangulate against.

Known limitations

No public hourly archive. The Saudi Electricity Company (se.com.sa) and ECRA publish annual capacity additions and aggregate generation but no hourly PV curtailment series — the National Grid SA TSO operates a vertically integrated single-buyer model that does not surface dispatch-down data publicly, mirroring the UAE pattern. The loader emits a typical solar shape (peak UTC 10, reflecting Arabia Standard Time midday) scaled to a ~0.1 TWh/yr anchor for early-stage clipping at Sakaka, Sudair, and Al Shuaibah utility-scale PV plants — small compared to Saudi's nameplate but real, given thermal-baseload-dominated dispatch and limited grid storage. T3-modelled, ±40% envelope; cross-listed in docs/known-limitations.md Item 14 alongside Jordan, UAE, Oman, and Israel as part of the Middle-East coverage-first fallback group. Anchor revision welcome if SEC publishes 2025 PV dispatch data — Saudi's 2030 130 GW solar target makes this region likely to grow into the dataset's Tier 2 anchors over the medium term. Methodologically distinct from e-saudi (associated-gas flare, kept separate per the flare-vs-renewable taxonomy in §4.2 of the paper).