Saudi Arabia’s Transition from Non-renewable to Renewable Energy Use: An empirical study on forecasting and Possible Solutions

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has focused its attention to developing a more diverse energy mix and a sustainable energy sector at the United Nations General Assembly. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 program intends to make the country's economy more resilient and long-term sustainable by 2030. Their National Industrial Development and Logistic Program (announced in 2019) emphasizes on the importance of the energy, mining, industrial, and logistics sectors, and believes in their integration to maximize their contribution to the Kingdom's efforts to build and diversify the economy (Vision 2030). A key objective of this national program is to enhance the share of renewable energy in the country's overall energy composition. In Saudi Arabia, there is a notable disparity between traditional and renewable energy sources. In reality, the country's adoption of renewable energy is markedly less compared to the leading energy consumers globally. This research aims to look into Saudi Arabia's existing renewable energy capacity and generation trends through time, as well as make forecasts using proper time series techniques. Only a few empirical studies in the Saudi Arabian context systematically forecast renewable energy capacity and electricity generation, according to our findings. As a result, data must be used for empirical analysis to assist policymakers in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) objective by 2030. World Bank, Our World in Data, The GlobalEconomy.com, and the Saudi Energy Ministry provided the data. The study concludes by demonstrating empirically the current state of Saudi Arabia's renewable energy capacity and electricity generation, as well as future predictions. Saudi Arabia will not be able to meet the SDG objective by 2030 based on current capacity and generation rates of renewable energy-based power for every citizen. It should quickly boost renewable energy capacity and generation as a percentage of total energy mix and spend more in this sector.