UAE-owned renewable energy company Masdar has achieved financial close on its first Azerbaijan solar project with a capacity of 230MW.
The Garadagh solar PV plant is expected to start commercial operation in 2023 and will also be the first foreign investment-based solar project in the country, according to Masdar.
The project will be co-financed by Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Earlier this year, Masdar reached an agreement with the Ministry of Energy from the Republic of Azerbaijan to develop up to 10GW of renewables in two phases, with the first phase consisting of 4GW of renewable capacity of which 1GW will come from solar PV.
The solar plant from Masdar will help Azerbaijan increase its share of power capacity coming from renewable sources as it aim to reach at least 30% by the end of the decade.
Masdar has ramped up its efforts to secure renewable agreements with a number of European and central Asian countries of late. n April, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Energy to explore the development of 1GW of renewables, and in January it set up a new joint venture (JV) to focus on developing renewables across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa with an initial pipeline of 8GW.
Furthermore, the UAE-backed renewable company is targeting 100GW of renewable capacity by 2030, which was up from a previous target of 50GW.
