Masdar, a state-owned energy company in the UAE, has reached financial close on its Garadagh solar photovoltaic plant in Azerbaijan. The 230 MW solar project is the company’s first in Azerbaijan, as well as the country’s first independently funded solar project. In addition to displacing more than 200,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, Garadagh will be able to produce 500 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to power over 110,000 homes.
The project, which is slated to start up in 2023, is anticipated to generate significant employment in the area. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) collectively contributed to the financing of Garadagh.
In June 2022, Masdar inked two agreements with Azerbaijan to develop 4 GW of clean and renewable energy projects. Azerbaijan aims to achieve a renewable energy share of installed power capacity of at least 30 per cent by 2030. Masdar’s agreements with the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan offer the possibility of developing an additional 6 GW in a second phase, raising the total production capacity of the projects to 10 GW.
REGlobal’s Views: Masdar intends to increase its renewable energy capacity to more than 50 GW by 2030. To expand its portfolio the company has made a series of investments in various attractive and largely untapped markets in the MENA and Central Asian region like Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.
