Saudi Arabia plans to establish 17 nuclear reactors worth more than 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2030 to meet demands of electricity, according to the Saudi News Agency on Wednesday.

Some of those reactors are expected to be operational by 2020, in which each nuclear station requires 9 to 11 years to be built, Vice-president of King Abdullah City for Nuclear Energy Dr Khalid Al Sulaiman told the agency. He said that nuclear projects would be established after the approval of the national plan by the beginning of 2013.

To meet the high demands of electricity in the current phase, Dr Sulaiman explained that the national plan includes benefiting from the solar energy. Each Solar energy project needs 18 to 24 months to be completed, in which the first solar energy station will start work after one year and more will be introduced until 2020, he said.

Saudi Arabia plans to seek alternative resources to generate electricity to increase their contributions to 50 percent of power supply by 2032, to meet demands that increase by 6-8 percent annually.

Saudi Arabia asked power consumers through a statement published on the agency to cut electricity consumption. It estimated more than 133 billion dollars to be spent on power production in the coming 15 years if the demands remain high.