Abu Dhabi clean energy company Masdar has reached the financial close for its $6.1 billion "world's first" 24/7 renewable energy facility, as it continues to boost its renewables portfolio.
The $5.1 billion financing package was backed by a consortium of 15 international and local banks, Masdar said in a statement on Monday. That "demonstrates strong market confidence in both the project’s commercial viability and Masdar’s ability to deliver complex energy infrastructure at scale", it added.
Masdar will fund $1 billion of equity for the project, which is being developed in Abu Dhabi by the company along with the Emirates Water and Electricity Company. It will integrate a 5.2 gigawatt solar photovoltaic plant with a 19 gigawatt hour battery energy storage system to provide clean energy without interruption.
The "significant" financing commitment "demonstrates our ability to mobilise global capital at scale while delivering innovative renewable infrastructure that supports long-term economic growth and energy security", said Mazin Khan, chief financial officer at Masdar. "We now look forward to advancing the project to deliver reliable, affordable, clean energy around the clock.”
The project, spread across 90 square kilometres, was launched by Masdar in January last year. The company broke ground on the project in October and it is expected to be operational in 2027.
It comes amid increasing pressure to boost international efforts to meet the global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030. The goals are critical to maintaining the 1.5°C threshold established in the Paris Agreement in 2015, a treaty in which 195 nations pledged to tackle climate change.
By the end of 2025, renewables accounted for 49 per cent of global installed power capacity, and comprised 85.6 per cent of annual global power additions, largely due to significant growth in solar and wind power, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. However, with global electricity demand set to rise faster, greater deployment is needed.
Electricity demand is forecast to increase at an average annual rate of 3.6 per cent from 2026 to 2030, supported by rising consumption from industry, electric vehicles, air conditioning and data centres, the International Energy Agency said in a report.
"As electricity demand accelerates, driven by artificial intelligence, data centres and advanced manufacturing, the project establishes a new benchmark for financing reliable, utility-scale clean energy projects and addresses the key challenge of intermittency," Masdar said on Monday.
The project's financial close "demonstrates that large-scale renewable energy projects capable of delivering round-the-clock power have evolved from technical ambition to commercially bankable infrastructure", it added.
UAE lenders in the consortium include Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank and First Abu Dhabi Bank. BNP Paribas, Bank of China, Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, HSBC, KfW IPEX-Bank, Natixis, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Standard Chartered Bank and Societe Generale also participated.
Masdar, which seeks to boost its renewable energy capacity to 100 gigawatts by 2030, currently has a portfolio of more than 65 gigawatts. It has projects across the full spectrum of renewable technologies, including solar, onshore wind, offshore wind, battery energy storage and hybrid solutions.
The company, jointly owned by Taqa, Adnoc and Mubadala, made investments worth $15 billion in renewable energy projects globally last year as part of its expansion plans, Masdar chief executive Mohamed Al Ramahi said in January.
At the start of the year, Masdar also said it was partnering with Emirates Utilities Development Company and Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy to explore the development of a giga-scale, round-the-clock clean energy project in the Central Asian country. The project is designed to deliver up to 1 gigawatt of continuous baseload power, the company said at the time.
