Jordan’s Ministry of Energy has awarded Saudi private energy developer Acwa Power a contract to build a 61.3MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant at Risha, 360km east of Amman near the border with Iraq.

The Risha solar plant will be built alongside an existing 150MW gas-fired power plant, which is fed from the nearby Risha gas field. The gas-fired plant requires 30mn cfd to operate at full capacity, but output from Risha – Jordan’s only producing gas field – has dwindled...