Xendee Corporation, provider of the leading design and operation platform for distributed energy systems and Electric Vehicle (EV) fast-charging infrastructure, announces the achievement of important milestones in their contract to support NEOM, a visionary development aiming to create a sustainable and futuristic city in the northwest region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In the first phase of the project, Xendee provided its expertise to support NEOM in the conversion from fossil-based systems to a renewable energy-driven infrastructure, leveraging solutions including solar panels (building integrated as well as rooftop), battery systems, wind turbines (both larger offshore and smaller ones next to buildings), hydrogen fuel cells, micro-hydro systems, and other innovative technologies at different locations such as The Line, Gulf of Aqaba, and Oxagon.
Most recently NEOM has faced some challenges regarding its ambitious goals and its ability to achieve them within the original plan’s scope. With the help of Xendee, some of the assumptions used in the original plan have been reworked. Xendee has demonstrated that 100% renewable energy is possible for those sites, but at a different cost level than originally assumed, which is addressable by the NEOM team. With updated information from Xendee, NEOM now moves into the next phase of the project – microgrid powered cities and islands with less reliance on expensive transmission projects or centralized power plants.
Michael Stadler, CTO and Co-founder of Xendee stated, “We have supported the NEOM team by providing training on distributed energy resource modeling as well as how to design the optimal solutions with Xendee’s software for NEOM’s unique power needs and objectives. This process has enabled the NEOM team to realign their goals, make positive changes to their technical plans, and ultimately arrive at a better plan that aligns all technical and economic objectives.”
The updated plan still has the same objectives of running entirely on renewable energy and being free of emissions but shifts away from a primarily centralized power grid toward higher efficiency distributed energy resources or microgrids throughout the development.
For example, within the new phase of work with NEOM, Xendee is now guiding modeling for an Archipelago of more than 10 islands to serve their energy needs completely via innovative and renewable microgrids, including building integrated PV, rooftop PV, batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and small wind turbines, minimizing the number of transmission projects. The goal is to maximize renewable energy, as well as minimize CO2 and costs to reduce the sizes and quantity of transmission lines. Xendee is leading this process and will also analyze multiple other sites and locations within the NEOM project.
NEOM’s construction is already underway, with the first destinations set to debut in 2028.
