The next gigawatt-scale wind PPA signed in MENA may not be signed by a utility.
The pieces are lining up. IRENA’s May 6 firm LCOE report estimated firm wind plus storage at roughly $59 to $94 per MWh across the markets it sampled in 2025 and named AI and data centres among the users firm renewables are well positioned to serve. In Abu Dhabi, Masdar and EWEC are developing what Masdar calls the world’s first gigascale integrated renewable project: 5.2 GW of solar plus 19 GWh of BESS delivering 1 GW of continuous baseload. The Egypt-Saudi HVDC link has completed final testing, Al Arabiya reported citing an unnamed source, with a first 1,500 MW phase and 3,000 MW once complete. In principle, wind generated in Egypt’s Gulf of Suez could then feed Saudi load.
My read is that a MENA hyperscaler wind PPA will get signed. What I cannot call yet is when, in which market, and with which counterparty.
Which lands first: Saudi Arabia, UAE, or Egypt? And does the buyer turn out to be Microsoft, Google, AWS, or a Gulf-native operator like G42 or Humain?
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