MENA is starting to buy wind by the hour as well as by the megawatt.
Three recent moves point the same way. Oman’s Nama Power and Water Procurement has awarded O-Green Energy a 2.7 GW wind, solar and storage contract, the first of two planned round-the-clock plants, and plans to tender a 1,000 MW round-the-clock project at a capacity factor above 70 percent this year. Saudi Arabia is tendering battery storage in tranches, 3 GW and 12 GWh in the second alone, which we read as the firming layer its wind fleet will need. In the UAE, Masdar and EWEC are developing a gigascale solar and battery project designed to deliver 1 GW of baseload around the clock. The common thread is procurement that pays for firm output.
My read is that wind is what holds the hybrid contracts together. A round-the-clock plant has to deliver after sunset and through the evening demand peak, which is exactly when solar output falls away. A solar-only firm contract crosses those hours on batteries alone. A wind-paired contract does not.
In our reading, that re-prices what a wind project is worth. Under a standard power purchase agreement, a developer is paid for energy whenever the wind happens to blow. Under a round-the-clock contract, wind is paid for filling the hours solar leaves empty, and a strong night or summer wind profile becomes a commercial asset.
If 2025 was the year MENA proved wind could be cheap, will 2026 be the year it proves wind can be firm?
