Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca could soon be powered by a giant solar farm, as part of plans to drastically scale up the country’s renewable energy capacity over the next 20 years.

According to reports in Bloomberg, Mecca is carrying out a tender process to build the first utility-scale solar plant in the country. The winning bidder is expected to be selected in January next year, under a build-own-transfer contract.

The city’s mayor, Osama al-Bar, said it was also considering installing wind turbines, biomass, and energy from waste technology they could process the 4,000 metric tons a day of rubbish produced each day by the city’s residents and the millions of pilgrims who visit the holy site each year.

However, the high temperatures experienced in Mecca mean solar power is likely to play the leading role in the city’s ambitious renewable energy plans.

“No city in Saudi Arabia owns power-generation assets, and we want to be first city that owns power plants and hopefully the first in the Muslim world,” said Osama al-Bar.

Mecca attracts millions of visitors each year, including Muslims making a pilgrimage to the site known as the Hajj. The 100MW solar plant would help to light 35 tunnels and other key infrastructure, reducing the city’s 100m riyal (£16.4m) annual electricity bill.

Saudi is the world’s largest oil exporter, but recently announced plans to invest $109bn in building up its solar power capacity from 3MW currently to 41gW by 2032.

In doing so, the country could become an exporter of renewable energy potentially saving the equivalent of more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi has predicted the nation could technically produce enough solar power to meet four times current world electricity demand.