Masdar joins Atlantic Council-EBRD conference in Turkey

Yousif Al Ali, Executive Director of Clean Energy at Masdar, participated in a panel at this month’s high-level Renewable Energy Outlook Conference for Turkey and the broader region.

Organised by the Atlantic Council and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the conference, titled Renewable Energy Outlook: Financing, Investment, Regulation, and New Technologies in Turkey, Central Asia, Caucasus and the Western Balkans, was held in Istanbul on February 13.

The conference addressed policy and regulatory trends in Turkey, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Western Balkans, as well as the investment environment for renewable energy and the outlook for technological innovations.

Speaking during his panel on the “Next Generation of Renewables: Transition Toward a Subsidy-Free World”, Al Ali said: “The public-private partnership [PPP] tendering process for renewable energy pilot projects in emerging economies can help to drive down tariff bids significantly thanks to initiatives such as the International Finance Corporation’s [IFC] Scaling Solar programme, which also encourages future private sector participation and sends a positive message to global investors.”

In November 2019, Masdar signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and a Government Support Agreement (GSA) with the government of Uzbekistan to design, finance, build and operate the country’s first PPP solar power plant.

Masdar won the project after it tendered the lowest tariff of 2.697 US cents per kilowatt hour in the programme’s competitive auction to develop the 100-megawatt (MW) utility scale PV solar plant, which will be located in the Navoi region. 

Masdar also signed an agreement last month with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade and JSC National Electric Grid to also design, finance, build and operate a 400-megawatt utility-scale wind farm project in the Navoi Region.

The two projects highlight Uzbekistan’s goal of developing 5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2030 – and under the IFC’s Scaling Solar programme, Uzbekistan aims to install 1GW of solar PV power. 

“We are eager to pursue bilateral opportunities in the region,” Al Ali told the panel. “We see potential specifically for utility-scale PV and wind projects using a government to government or PPP/IPP structure.”

Masdar is active in a number of countries in Central Asia, Caucasus and the Western Balkans, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Montenegro and Serbia.