Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) signed a contract worth 4.7 billion riyals ($1.25 billion) on Wednesday to build a power plant outside the capital Riyadh, the company said.

The plant with a capacity of 2,175 megawatts is to be built in 36 months in an area 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Riyadh,  state-run SEC said in an emailed statement. It will be the 12th plant in the Riyadh area. The statement did not name the contractor.

Industry sources familiar with the bidding said in April that Arabian Bemco Contracting Co (Bemco) had submitted the lowest bid to build a nearly 2,000 megawatt (MW) power plant near Riyadh for SEC.

Saudi Electricity has an $80-billion investment plan to increase its power generation capacity by 30,000 MW by 2018 to meet power demand which is growing at around 8 percent each year. - Reuters