Renewable Energy

Masdar views Middle East as biggest growth market

January 15, 2025, 7:57 PM

Giorgia Meloni, Italy's prime minister, with Sultan Al Jaber, the minister of industry and chairman of Masdar, at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week Summit, in Abu Dhabi

Masdar maintains local focus
Potential for global growth
Halfway to 100GW target

UAE’s renewable energy company Masdar considers the Middle East its biggest market, even though its target is to grow globally, a senior executive has said.

“The Middle East is the biggest market for us, we are a company from here, and this market is growing significantly,” Abdulaziz Alobaidli, chief executive officer of Masdar, told AGBI at the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) conference.

Masdar announced on Wednesday it has reached half of its 100GW capacity target that it set for 2030.

The company is focusing on solar, wind and battery storage which it says have “huge potential”.

Its overall operational, under construction and advanced pipeline capacity reached 51GW by the end of 2024, Masdar said.

“We’re expecting within the coming 12 months to close those projects [in the advanced pipeline] and start the construction,” Alobaidli said.

Masdar’s portfolio of operational and under construction projects rose in 12 months from 16.5GW to 32.6GW by the end of 2024.

The company deployed nearly $8 billion in equity investments and secured more than $4.5 billion of project financing across nine countries last year.

Masdar, which is owned by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and the state energy businesses Adnoc and Taqa, has invested in more than 40 countries with deals in Asia, the US and Europe.

In Europe its acquisitions included Terna Energy of Greece – one of the largest in the European renewables market and the biggest ever energy transaction on the Athens Stock Exchange – as well as deals in Spain and Portugal.

In the US the company completed its acquisition of a 50 percent stake in Terra-Gen Power Holdings II, adding it to its 1.4GW US assets.

Last year Masdar broke ground on seven major projects, including two combined solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in the UK, two solar schemes in Azerbaijan with a combined capacity of 760MW, and the 1.5GW Al Ajban solar project in the UAE.

Projects in progress

It has also announced the financial close of six projects, including the 1.1GW Al Henakiyah solar power plant and multi-utility Amaala sustainable project in Saudi Arabia, as well as 760MW solar projects Bilasuvar and Neftchala in Azerbaijan.

“We made significant progress by increasing our overall capacity to more than halfway to meeting our 100GW by 2030 target,” said Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of Masdar.

Masdar announced this week a $6 billion solar and energy storage project in Abu Dhabi, which is able to power approximately 750,000 to 1 million homes with 1GW of uninterrupted power.

Further growth will be ”based on the opportunities” said Alobaidli, as the company is looking to grow globally. “We are focusing currently on the offshore business as well, mainly in Europe, [but] we look at all markets equally; every market is important for us,” he said.