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CASE: SM-375
DATE: 08/09/24

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ENOWA: POWERING AN ENTIRE REGION
WITH 100% RENEWABLES

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NEOM has a strategy dedicated to building a 100 percent renewable energy system—and we
[ENOWA] are building that system from scratch. You couldn’t possibly find an expression of more
dedication to renewable energy and sustainability than what we are doing at NEOM, blessed with
fantastic solar irradiation and good wind power. It’s a lighthouse project to show the world that
large scale energy systems can securely be run on 100 percent renewable energy.1
— Jens Madrian, Managing Director Energy, ENOWA
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In August 2023, Jens Madrian considered the final question arising from his presentation to
researchers at Stanford University on designing a 100 percent renewable energy system for an
ambitious development initiative named NEOM, signifying new future, in Saudi Arabia. NEOM
encompassed the development of several regions across a landmass of 26,500 square kilometers
in the northwestern province of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia (Exhibit 1: Map of Saudi Arabia). The
Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) funded the ambitious development with an initial
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investment commitment of $500 billion.

Madrian, who had joined NEOM in 2019, was the managing director of energy at ENOWA, a
wholly owned subsidiary of NEOM that was formally launched in 2022 to build and manage the
water and energy infrastructure for the entire region. Madrian was responsible for the design and
delivery of a sustainable energy system, at the lowest cost, to power NEOM. Although the days
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surrounding Madrian’s Bay Area visit were packed with meetings with venture capitalist start-ups

1
Jens Madrian speaking at the 3rd International Conference on Evolving Cities (ICEC) at the University of Southampton, U.K.,
July 2022, [Link] (October 23, 2023).
Authors’ note: To achieve the educational goal of this case, the case writers have considerably simplified the structure of the real-
world energy system design problem faced by ENOWA. This case study is based on discussions with employees at ENOWA,
however liberties have been taken with elements of the case such as names, characters, dates, and data to lay the foundation for a
discussion of the issues chronicled in the case. The authors would like to thank Christoph Knedel and Olumi Adisa for constructive
suggestions.
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Rezvan Derayati, Margot Sutherland, and Professor Stefan Reichelstein, William R. Timken Professor, Emeritus at Stanford GSB,
and Senior Fellow, Precourt Institute for Energy, prepared this case solely as the basis for class discussion. Stanford GSB cases are
not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of either effective or ineffective handling of an
administrative situation. Funding for this case was provided by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Precourt Institute
for Energy. This case was reviewed and approved before publication by a company designate.

Copyright © 2024 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means––electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise––without the permission of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Contact
us at: businesscases@[Link] or Case Writing Office, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Knight Management Center, 655
Knight Way, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015.
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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.2

and larger technology companies, he set aside time to discuss ENOWA’s approach to powering the

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planned area with energy experts at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

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Interest in ENOWA’s progress was immense: The components of the planned greenfield energy
system—wind, solar, a digital energy platform, storage, and eventually green hydrogen—allowed
ENOWA “to focus on effectiveness—doing the right things—rather than efficiency,”2 an
unavoidable anchor of legacy energy systems.

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The final question the researchers were interested in was one the energy modeling team at
ENOWA had been grappling with: What would a cost-efficient energy system for NEOM require
in terms of power generation and energy storage capacity?

THE BEGINNING: VISION 2030, NEOM’S CHARTER, AND NET ZERO CARBON PLEDGE

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In 2016, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) set out Vision 2030,3 a government program that
aimed to diversify KSA’s economy and reduce its reliance on the oil and gas sector, the foundation
of the national economy. The Kingdom planned to increase the amount of energy from solar, wind,
and nuclear power, while still producing hydrocarbons.4

NEOM was announced in October 2017. NEOM’s region in the province of Tabuk was envisaged
as a special economic zone within Saudi Arabia enabling innovation and a new model for
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sustainable living.5 The site for NEOM was selected because of the region’s high wind speeds and
high solar radiation—one of just six such locations on earth (Figure 1).
Figure 1: NEOM’s Wind and Solar Prospects
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Source: ENOWA.

2
All unattributed quotations in this case are from the authors’ interviews with Jens Madrian in August and November 2023.
3
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, “Vision 2030,” [Link] (December 14, 2023).
4
In 2023, fossil fuels accounted for about 85 percent of KSA exports and almost 90 percent of fiscal revenue. These exports
supplied about 10 percent of global demand.
5
NEOM, “This is NEOM” video, [Link] (December 14, 2023).

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.3

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The region met the Kingdom’s requirements for a site amenable to building a carbon-free energy

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ecosystem from scratch, with the potential for providing low-cost electricity via wind and solar
photovoltaic (PV) arrays. In addition, the location on the Red Sea was amenable to hosting a port
and an advanced manufacturing hub with access to one of the world’s most heavily trafficked
shipping lanes.

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To diversify the economy and support the development of the NEOM region, 14 sectors were
planned: Design & Construction, Education, Energy, Entertainment & Culture, Financial Services,
Food, Health & Well-being, Manufacturing, Media, Mobility, Sport, Technology & Digital,
Tourism, and Water.6 Each sector was charged with advancing technology and pushing the limits
of knowledge. The costs to establish these sectors prior to receiving revenue would be funded
mainly by the initial $500 billion PIF commitment, as well as local and international investors.7

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Multiple regions were planned within NEOM including Oxagon, a floating port city and center for
advanced manufacturing; Trojena, a year-round mountain destination with a ski resort for the
winter season; Sindalah, a luxury island destination; and THE LINE, a linear city that would house
9 million residents once complete. Construction of THE LINE was expected to span over three
decades and the city was to be built in a modular fashion. While the megacity was an urban
development project in terms of its massive scale, purpose, and planned infrastructure, THE
LINE’s design was experimental, comprising the use of renewable energy, advanced transportation
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systems, and smart city technologies, all in a novel configuration. Sindalah, a smaller infrastructure
project in relation to THE LINE, was expected to open in 2024.8 Sindalah included a marina, yacht
and golf clubs, and four luxury hotels. Oxagon was planned to be a center for advanced
manufacturing and development and an expansion of the existing port in Duba. Oxagon welcomed
its first industrial tenant in 2024, with a phased launch of different parts of the floating port city
planned for the coming years. As it expanded, NEOM was expected to launch new regions
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(Exhibit 2: Regions of NEOM).

On October 23, 2021, speaking at the first Saudi Green Initiative Forum, Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) announced Saudi Arabia’s commitment to reach net zero
greenhouse gas emissions by 2060. MBS also announced efforts to reduce carbon emissions, which
included goals to plant 450 million trees and rehabilitate degraded lands by 2030.9 While the
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pledge to reduce emissions from within Saudi Arabia’s borders was lauded as a step in the right
direction, the Kingdom would continue to produce fossil fuels.
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6
NEOM, “An Economic Engine,” [Link] (December 14, 2023).
7
“NEOM announces the inauguration of NEOM Investment Fund alongside new investment across next-generation and clean
industries,” NEOM press release, October 24, 2023 [Link] and [Link]
us/newsroom/NEOM-announces-investment-fund (October 25, 2023).
8
Rawan Radwan, “Could NEOM”s Sindalah island be the premiere luxury destination of 2024?,” Arab News, April 10, 2023
(October 26, 2023).
9
The Associated Press, “Saudi Arabia pledges net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060,” October 23, 2021
(October 26, 2023).

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.4

NEOM in the Press: Anguish, Aversion, and Accolades

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From the beginning, NEOM attracted commentary from both skeptics and supporters. Journalists
closely followed the plans, commenting on the potential impact to the Tabuk province and
weighing up the project’s scope, creativity, and ambition.

Among the skeptics, an article in the Economist characterized NEOM as a “vanity project,”10 while

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the Wall Street Journal raised the question whether NEOM represented a “$500 Billion Megacity
Dream [that] Clashes With Reality.”11 Further, questions about death and prison sentences meted
out against protesters amongst the region’s native Huwaitat tribe appeared in a Washington Post
article, advising companies and foreign investors to focus attention on the human costs of “MBS’s
castles in the sand.”12 Similarly, a commentary in the Financial Times asked whether the entire
NEOM project amounted to “dystopia portrayed as Utopia.”13

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But other media features appeared to embrace the potential of NEOM. For instance, an article in
Forbes described NEOM's innovative approach to urban planning with THE LINE, a city design
that challenged traditional notions of urban living,14 while The National highlighted NEOM CEO
Nadhmi Al Nasr’s comment that NEOM aims to “redefine livability, conservation and innovation
in industries.”15 Media outlets such as the BBC pointed to NEOM as a potential catalyst for
spurring creative thinking in the Middle East to “start afresh and build a smart, sustainable city
powered by wind and solar, with water provided by carbon-free desalination plants.”16
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ENOWA: CHALLENGES AND PLANS

ENOWA was launched on March 21, 2022, to develop NEOM’s sustainable energy and water
systems and encompassed three sectors: energy, water, and hydrogen. The fresh start commented
on in the BBC article (see above) provided ENOWA with a blank slate and the opportunity to
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create an integrated market design and sustainable energy system from the ground up. Madrian
described the importance of innovation and the generative culture at NEOM in meeting these
challenges:

NEOM is a hub for innovation for entrepreneurs, business leaders and companies
who will come to NEOM to research, incubate and commercialize clean tech
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innovation. Innovation is not a “nice to have” but rather a conditio sine qua non,
and super crucial, to deliver lowest cost levels, in a secure form, on a 100 percent
renewable basis. Without innovation, NEOM will not achieve our 100 percent
renewable-based energy target. ENOWA therefore engages in promising

10
“The Gulf’s boundless ambition to change the world,” The Economist, September 7, 2023 (November 15, 2023).
11
Rory Jones and Stephen Kalin, “Dates, Coffee and Camels – Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign-Wealth Fund Bets Big at Home,”
The Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2023 (November 15, 2023).
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12
Editorial Board, “Saudi Arabia’s new mega-city may be built on a foundation of tyranny,” The Washington Post,
May 10, 2023 (November 15, 2023).
13
Edwin Heathcote, “Saudi’s Neom is dystopia portrayed as Utopia,” Financial Times, August 1, 2022 (November 15, 2023).
14
Brad Templeton, “Saudi Arabia’s NEOM “The Line’ Choses That Shape Due To 20th Century Train Thinking,” Forbes,
June 21, 2023 (August 8, 2024).
15
Mariam Nihal, “Neom to redefine liveability, business and conservation says CEO,” The National, International Edition,
October 29, 2023 (August 8, 2024).
16
Merlyn Thomas and Vibeke Venema, “Neom: What’s the green truth behind a planned eco-city in the Saudi desert?”
[Link], February 22, 2022 (November 15, 2023).

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.5

innovations, venture capital as well as technology and industrial partnerships

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through its venture team to accelerate its business strategy.17

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Deploying Renewables in a Blank Slate Environment

The supply of energy from renewables differed from the supply of energy from traditional
dispatchable power generation sources, such as coal and gas-fired power stations. For each of the

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four seasons, Figures 2a and 2b show the expected average hourly power output that could be
obtained from a 1 MW solar and 1 MW wind facility, respectively. For wind power, the average
annual capacity factor is close to 30 percent, meaning that a 1 MW system can be expected to
generate:
1 𝑀𝑊 ∙ 8,760 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 ∙ .30 = 2,628 𝑀𝑊ℎ

of energy per year. Similarly, the annual capacity factor of a solar PV facility was forecast to be

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37 percent, meaning that a 1 MW solar facility would generate, on average, about 3,240 MWh of
electricity each year.

The electricity generation patterns in Figures 2a and 2b reveal that wind power partly complements
the lack of solar PV output at night. Nonetheless, the modeling team at ENOWA anticipated that
the renewables generation would need to be supplemented by significant energy storage
capabilities.
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Figure 2a: Solar Photovoltaic Nameplate Capacity = 1 MW
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17
Jens Madrian, “Designing a 100% Renewable Energy System,” YouTube, Stanford Smart Grid Seminar, Bits & Watts
Initiative, Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University, November 16, 2022 (August 20, 2024).

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.6

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Figure 2b: Wind Nameplate Capacity = 1 MW

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Source: Case authors.

Energy Storage: Lithium-Ion Batteries and Pumped Hydro

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In legacy energy systems, power generated by fossil fuel plants could be ramped up or down
flexibly in response to changing demand. In a system powered by variable and intermittent
renewable sources, however, both demand and supply were subject to fluctuations that needed to
be tracked not only on a seasonal, but also on a daily, hourly, and even finer time scale. For
planning purposes, the team at ENOWA sought to explore the viability of alternative storage
portfolios consisting of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, other long-duration energy storage
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solutions, and pumped hydro storage.18

Digital Energy Platform (DEP)

The question of how best to respond flexibly to demand led to the conceptualization of a digital
energy platform. Madrian outlined the functionality of the proposed platform: It would link “all
parts of the value chain—generation, transmission distribution, and retail—all connected as an
integrated data layer to enable decision making on a consolidated basis, from a total system
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optimization to ultimately enable the 100 percent renewable-based system.”

The main purpose of the DEP was to optimize the dispatch and stabilize the energy system in real
time around the clock. The algorithm would optimize the system for intervals as small as minutes
18
Alberto Boretti and Stefania Castelleto, “Opportunities of renewable energy supply to NEOM city,” Renewable Energy Focus,
Volume 40, March 2022, pp. 67-81, [Link] (November 15,
2023).

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.7

or even seconds, enabling NEOM to react quickly to unforeseen system imbalances caused by the

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variability and intermittency of wind and solar power generation. ENOWA planned to deploy

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technology that used AI-backed optimization developed in other industries to increase efficiency
and reduce the overall cost of the energy system.

Madrian described the rationale for the system and its benefits:

A cutting-edge, technology-enabled dispatch system will be effective at NEOM

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because, since the system is being built from scratch, there is no legacy system that
can be relied upon to smooth over the volatility of power generation from
renewables.

The benefits of such a dispatch system for energy are more power, quicker reaction
time, and the ability to react to speedy system changes. Unlike power derived from

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gas or hydro, power derived from wind and solar can’t be “managed”—a
sophisticated dispatch system is needed to keep the system in balance, for example,
responding to fluctuations in customers’ demand [such as cooling and industrial
consumption], or the use of interconnectors [connecting one region to another,
allowing power to shift to where the demand is, stabilizing the service], or enabling
battery storage.19
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PRELIMINARY COST ANALYSIS

The energy modeling team at ENOWA was interested in a preliminary estimate of what a cost-
efficient energy system would require in terms of power generation and energy storage capacity.
To that end, conducting a cost analysis was suggested, using the projected electricity demand for
2030, as shown in Figure 3. When compiled across the four seasons, these projections yield an
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annual energy demand of close to 63 TWh. The graphs in Figure 3 represent the average power
demand for each season. A companion Excel spreadsheet (created by the authors of this case
study), subsequently referred to as the KPI (key performance indicators) tool, shows that the hourly
peak demand figures exceed the average seasonal figures shown in Figure 3, though the hourly
peak demand never exceeds 9 GW. In magnitude, the projected energy demand shown in Figure 3
is comparable to the energy demand of a mid-sized economy like Portugal or Austria.
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19
All unattributed quotations in this case are from the authors’ interviews with Jens Madrian in August and November 2023.

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.8

Figure 3: NEOM Electricity Demand

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The main task of the preliminary cost analysis now becomes the identification of a portfolio of
Energy Generation and Storage assets (from here on referred to as an EG&S system) that
minimizes the overall life-cycle cost associated with these assets. Figure 4 illustrates the
associated energy flows from power generation to both demand and storage, as well as from
energy storage to demand.
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Figure 4: Energy Flows in a Combined EG&S System

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.9

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The anticipated acquisition cost (CapEx) for both solar PV and wind power is shown in Exhibit

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3 on a per MW basis. Given the annual capacity factors of these two generation sources and an
assumed cost of capital (WAAC) of 4.5 percent, solar PV was projected to result in a remarkably
low levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of 1.2 cents per kWh, while the LCOE of wind power
amounted to 3.4 cents per kWh.20 The KPI tool provides details on these LCOE calculations.

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Regarding energy storage assets, capacity had to be chosen in two dimensions: the energy storage
capacity, measured in MWh, and the duration, measured in hours, of the particular storage
facility. For instance, if a 1,000 MWh battery system has a duration of 4 hours, this required the
battery to have a power charge/discharge capacity of 250 MW. On the other hand, if the 1,000
MWh battery was configured for a duration of 8 hours, it would suffice to outfit the battery with
a power charging/discharging capacity of 125 MW.

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For the purposes of the preliminary cost analysis, the KPI tool is designed to adopt the following
simplified modeling framework:

• The installation of wind power capacity is limited to at most 8,000 MW due to space
constraints in the Gulf of Abaqa.
• The scale of solar PV power capacity, in contrast, can be chosen freely. In particular, it
would be possible to “overbuild” the total generation capacity resulting in “surplus
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energy”—beyond the projected total demand of 63 TWh.
• Regarding pumped hydropower, two mutually exclusive alternatives are being
considered: a “small” variant amounting to 8,800 MWh of storage capacity and a
duration of 8 hours. An alternative “large” pumped hydropower facility would provide
81,900 MWh of storage capacity with a duration of 39 hours.
•
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Li-ion batteries could be deployed flexibly both in terms of their energy storage capacity
and the corresponding duration. Specifically, the power charge/discharge capacity of the
Li-ion batteries could be chosen so that the batteries would have a duration of either 4,
8, or 12 hours.
• The anticipated roundtrip efficiency of li-ion batteries was 83 percent, while the
anticipated round-trip efficiency of the pumped hydro solutions was estimated to be 80
percent.
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• The CapEx and OpEx costs of the different generation and storage technologies are
provided in Exhibit 3.
• The assumed useful life of all generation and storage technologies was assumed to be 25
years. For simplicity, issues of system degradation were ignored as part of the
preliminary cost analysis.

For each candidate EG&S system, the KPI tool calculates three performance metrics: (i) the
levelized cost of energy delivered (LCOED); (ii) the amount of unserved energy; and (iii) the
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amount of excess energy. As the name suggests, the LCOED is a unit cost figure (in $ per MWh)
that reflects the lowest revenue that a service provider would need on average for all MWh
provided in real time to the NEOM grid in order to break even on the investment and operating
costs associated with that particular EG&S system.

20
These projections take into account that both solar and wind installations incur annual fixed operating costs as shown in Exhibit 3.

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.10

The KPI calculator tool relies on a dispatch algorithm that governs—on an hourly basis—the

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energy flows from power generation to the grid and the storage facilities, as well as the energy

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flows from the storage assets to the grid. If a candidate EG&S system is incapable of meeting
demand at certain hours of the year, the LCOED metric assesses a penalty of $10,000 for each
MWh of unserved energy. In addition to the LCOED, the KPI calculator tool identifies the annual
amount of unserved energy (penalized at the rate of $10,000 per MWh in the LCOED calculation)
as well as the annual amount of surplus energy.

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NEOM’S NEXT STEP: A GREEN HYDROGEN FACILITY AT OXAGON

In 2023, NEOM announced investments in several sustainable start-up firms and the construction
of a green hydrogen facility at Oxagon. The facility would be powered entirely by renewable
energy: an estimated 4 GW of power from wind, solar, and storage systems. The plant was

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projected to produce 600 tons of clean hydrogen per day and up to 1.2 million tons of green
ammonia annually by year-end 2026. The green ammonia was destined for global markets,
supporting the decarbonization of the heavy-duty transport sector and reducing carbon dioxide
emissions. The project was expected to result in annual reductions of up to 5 million tons of CO2
emissions.21, 22, 23

The Road Ahead: From Vision to Reality

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Over his career, Madrian had worked in large multinational corporations and start-up
environments. He had observed cultures that were supportive of the company’s business model,
and cultures that had a more draining impact on employees and their motivation. At ENOWA,
Madrian believed an open, trusting culture was key to turning the company’s vision into reality.
He described his approach:
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On our journey towards a 100 percent renewable-based system, there are many
elements that are uncertain or unknown. I don’t pretend I know it all. We know a
lot—enough to get us directionally into the right space. But it’s a constant journey
of exploring. It’s a journey of innovation. It’s also a journey of failure, of falling
down, standing up, trying again. It’s also a journey of leadership, in particular of
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creating followership for turning our vision into living reality. Without folks
choosing to follow despite absence of a concrete action plan for the next decades,
the remote location of the venture and a number of other, not immaterial challenges,
it’s going to get really hard.

That’s also why I don't spend a lot of time looking in the rear-view mirror. When
I’m driving, I look forward. I do have to look in the rear-view mirror from time to
time so I have an understanding of where I’m moving from. But that’s about it. Our
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culture is one of exploration, and acceptance and learning. Without a culture of

exploration and learning from failure, we will never get this done.

21
Acwa Power, “NEOM Green Hydrogen Project,” [Link]
(December 14, 2023).
22
Smart Water Magazine, “NEOM green hydrogen project on track for 2026 completion,” July 7, 2023 (December 14, 2023).
23
NEOM Green Hydrogen Company, “About,” [Link] (December 14, 2023).

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.11

In closing his presentation at the Smart-Grid seminar, Madrian reflected:

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For me, ultimately, NEOM is a bold dream: a vision of what the new future of urban
development may look like. In fact, NEOM means “new future.” It is an accelerator
for change and human progress. NEOM is a fantastic opportunity to build an
innovative carbon-free ecosystem, from scratch, and we will get the job done
showing the world that large energy systems can be fully powered by renewable

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energy in a secure and cost-effective way.24

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24
Jens Madrian, “Designing a 100% Renewable Energy System,” loc. cit.

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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.12

Exhibit 1

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Map of Saudi Arabia

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Administrative Divisions

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Reproduced courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.
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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.13

Exhibit 2

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Regions of NEOM

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Source: NEOM.
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 ENOWA: Powering an Entire Region by 100% Renewables SM-375 p.14

Exhibit 3

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Cost and Performance Parameters

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25

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1
CapEx and OpEx values are provided for three different durations: 4 hours (4h), 8 hours (8h), and 12 hours (12h).
2
CapEx and OpEx values are provided for two different energy storage capacities: 8,800 MWh and 81,900 MWh. The
corresponding storage durations are 8h and 39h, respectively.

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