A wind, solar and storage contract in Oman, part of a 2.7 GW hybrid development, went to a state-backed Omani company this month.
In mid-May, Oman’s single buyer, Nama Power and Water Procurement, awarded the power purchase agreement for the round-the-clock scheme to O-Green Energy. Energy minister Salim Al Aufi called it the first of two planned round-the-clock plants.
The same week, in Cairo, President El-Sisi sat down with his prime minister and electricity minister for a project-by-project review of Egypt’s 7,000 MW renewable and storage pipeline, including the 900 MW Ras Shokeir wind farm, confirmed for grid connection in 2027.
Two countries, one week, the same signal as I read it. Beyond policymaker and offtaker, the state is increasingly the developer and the financier for MENA wind.
For a decade the familiar regional model was simple. A government set a target and ran a tender. A developer, often European or Gulf, took the equity. Development finance institutions and commercial banks took the debt.
That model still works and still runs. A second model now sits alongside it. Oman’s O-Green is a state-backed company holding the contract directly. Egypt’s 4,750 MW Tahya Misr wind and storage program is led by a state holding company that arranges its own financing and prices power in Egyptian pounds. The UAE built the original template years ago with Masdar, today a 65 GW portfolio owned by the state.
Why does the ownership question matter as much as the megawatts? Currency is one reason. In my view a state developer pricing in local currency shields a project from dollar exposure. Speed is another: when the sponsor and the offtaker answer to the same government, I expect financial close and grid connection to stop competing for attention. And value. The returns on a 25-year asset stay inside the country that built it.
The risks are just as real. Concentrating wind equity on sovereign and state-enterprise balance sheets concentrates the downside there too. International capital does not leave, but its role shifts from sponsor to lender, and I think less operating expertise travels with money that only lends.
The headline number for MENA wind in 2026 will be gigawatts tendered and gigawatts financed. The more telling number is harder to see: how much of that capacity the region now owns outright.
Which country still relying entirely on foreign sponsors will be the next to follow Oman and Egypt?
