INTEGRATING ENERGY EFFICIENCY INTO POWER GENERATION PROJECT FINANCE IN SAUDI ARABIA: RISK, INVESTMENT AND STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING UNDER VISION 2030

Saudi Arabias power-sector transition is usually framed as a capacity-expansion problem: finance new renewable generation, reinforce grids, add storage, and modernize gas-fired assets. This review argues that such framing is incomplete because energy efficiency within power generation changes the financeable economics of the entire transition. Heat-rate improvement, combined-cycle optimization, auxiliary-load reduction, digital operations and maintenance, flexible dispatch, and reliability upgrades can lower fuel use, reduce operating volatility, preserve exportable hydrocarbons, and improve the cash-flow quality of generation portfolios. Yet these measures are frequently evaluated as engineering expenditures rather than as productive infrastructure capable of carrying project-finance logic. Drawing on peer-reviewed literature on renewable-energy finance, project-finance risk, energy-performance contracting, green finance, and Saudi energy-transition strategy, this integrative review develops a bankability-centered framework for embedding efficiency into investment appraisal under Vision 2030. The synthesis shows that the principal barrier is not technical feasibility alone but the fragmentation of benefits across fuel savings, avoided outages, maintenance reductions, capacity value, emissions performance, and flexibility.