Saudi Arabia plans to build sixteen 17-gigawatt nuclear reactors at a total cost of around $100 billion, said a report.

The plants will take nine years to 11 years to complete and the first will start operations by 2020, said the Saudi Gazette report.

“Nuclear energy and renewables have an active role and can contribute up to 50 per cent of electricity production,” Hashim Yamani, the president of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewables Energy was quoted as saying in the report.

Saudi Arabia has signed nuclear cooperation pacts with China, France, Argentina and South Korea and is in discussions with the US, UK, Russia and the Czech Republic, it added.