A Saudi developer just lined up $226 million of multilateral and bank debt to put 300 megawatts of wind into Uzbekistan, and that direction of travel is the real story.
ACWA Power secured the funding for the Bash II wind farm from the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Standard Chartered, the company said in a statement reported by AGBI on May 8. The package covers more than two thirds of project cost. The farm is in southwestern Uzbekistan, and commercial operations are scheduled for the second half of 2027, with a 25 year power purchase agreement with the state-owned National Electric Grid of Uzbekistan. Once running, Bash II will supply more than 336,000 households and avoid about 475,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
What to look for
I see two signals worth tracking. First, ACWA Power is arranging multilateral wind finance outside the Gulf as a project sponsor, which in our read says the Saudi renewable model is mature enough to travel. Second, a senior debt mix of ADB, AIIB and a global bank suggests to us that emerging-market wind can be financed through repeatable structures rather than one off sovereign deals.
What it means for MENA
For years, the question was whether MENA could attract European and Asian capital to build wind at home. The new question is whether MENA capital can underwrite wind elsewhere. ACWA Power’s Uzbek financing is one answer. The company is 44 percent owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and reports 110 projects in operation, construction or advanced development. We read MENA wind as now both a destination for capital and a source of it.
If you finance, supply, or partner in this market, watch where Riyadh and Abu Dhabi deploy next. Where would you place the next ACWA Power flag: North Africa, deeper into Asia, or further afield?
