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Mena clean energy pipeline climbs to 246GW

14 February 2025

 

Some 47.4GW of clean and renewable energy power generation plants are under construction across 15 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.

Based on the latest available data from MEED and MEED Projects, a further 199GW are in the study, design, prequalification and bid stages.

The total pipeline of 246GW is close to half of renewable energy capacity additions globally, which stood at 510GW in 2023.

Saudi Arabia leads with some 17.7GW of renewable energy capacity under construction, mainly comprising an estimated 16.5GW of capacity from solar power plants, which were procured under a public tendering process as well as direct negotiations. Wind power accounts for the rest.

Egypt is the second-largest market, with under-construction projects including the first two units of the El-Dabaa nuclear power plant in Matrouh and some 3GW of solar and 3.8GW of wind power plants.

Iran has the third-largest clean energy capacity under construction, including over 3.4GW of hydropower and 2.4GW of nuclear power. 

The UAE ranks fourth, with a total of 3.7GW of capacity under execution. These projects include the 1.5GW Al-Ajban solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in Abu Dhabi, the 1.8GW phase 6 of Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Solar Park project, the 250MW hydropower plant in Dubai and a waste-to-energy project in Abu Dhabi.

Morocco’s capacity under construction is estimated at around 3.6GW, dominated by solar power plants, which have a cumulative capacity of roughly 2.8GW.

Overall, solar PV projects – some in combination with battery energy storage system plants – account for 32GW or close to 68% of the capacity under construction across the Mena region.

Wind and nuclear account for 14% and 10% of the total, respectively, with hydropower plants accounting for 8.4%.

An estimated 9.4GW of the projects under execution, mostly solar, are due to be completed this year. A further 11.9GW are set to be delivered in 2026, and 23GW by 2027. The rest, including the first reactors of the El-Dabaa nuclear power plant in Egypt, are expected to be completed in 2028 or beyond.

This implies that electricity from clean and renewable power sources is set to become a substantial part of the region’s energy mix, particularly in the states that have been cited.

The known solar PV installed capacity in the Middle East, for instance, is estimated to be around merely 18GW as of 2023. 

It could also imply that the targets for clean and renewable sources to account for 50% or more of the electricity production mix in certain Mena countries may be achievable, with the region’s largest economy, Saudi Arabia, aiming to procure 20GW of renewable energy annually until it reaches the new target of up to 130GW by 2030 “subject to demand growth”.

Pre-execution

The pipeline of pre-execution projects is equally impressive, potentially yielding an electricity production capacity of close to 200GW, if all these planned projects are implemented.

Most of these projects are envisaged to be grid-connected and exclude captive renewable energy plants catering to industries or enterprises, or those announced as part of integrated green hydrogen and ammonia production facilities.

Saudi Arabia has the largest pre-execution pipeline of over 83GW. This includes around 55GW of capacity in the conceptual stage, catering to the Neom gigaproject, the $500bn masterplan northwest of the kingdom that aims to be powered 100% by renewable energy.

Saudi Arabia’s clean and renewable energy pipeline, inclusive of the Duwaiheen nuclear plant project, is larger than the planned capacity across the next four largest markets: Egypt, Morocco, the UAE and Iraq.

Notably, roughly a quarter of the pre-execution projects in Saudi Arabia are in the prequalification and bidding stages, whereas a mere 3.2% of the planned projects in Egypt have so far reached these stages.

In Morocco, a project called Xlinks, which aims to deliver clean energy to the UK, accounts for about half of the renewable energy capacity being planned.

In the UAE, some 19% of the $16.4bn pre-execution projects are in the prequalification and bid stages. The bulk of capacity in the design stage includes the next phase of the Barakah nuclear power plant as well as the round-the-clock solar PV and battery energy storage system (bess) plant facility in Abu Dhabi.

The 5.2GW solar /19GWh bess project in Abu Dhabi, estimated to require an investment of $6bn, is expected to reach financial close in Q2, which means it will rapidly move from design to execution. Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), the project’s main developer, has already selected the engineering, procurement and construction and other sub-contractors for the project.

Risks and opportunities

The massive renewable capacity buildout across the major Mena region is expediting the procurement of bess plants, whether independently by the transmission and distribution (T&D) entities – as exemplified by recent projects in Saudi Arabia – or in combination with a solar PV project, such as the UAE’s 1GW round-the-clock solar project.

Batteries will help boost the flexibility of the electricity grids as more intermittent renewable power is added and overall demand increases.

The rapid decline in battery unit prices has helped bring several bess projects with substantial capacities to the market over the past 12 to 18 months, and this pace is expected to further accelerate in the future.

Yet, batteries alone will not be sufficient to address the peak electricity demand, particularly across the GCC states, which some experts say falls between 6:00 pm and 6:00 am, especially in the summer months, coinciding with a period when solar PV plants do not produce power and where only a very limited wind capacity may be available.

“There is no doubt batteries can help address that gap, but maybe not to the extent some may envisage,” notes a Dubai-based industry source.

“The issue is not the unit price of batteries, but the volume that you need to address that gap and how much it would cost. Depending on the configuration and the volume of batteries installed, you have bess systems that can provide five to six hours of storage today,” he explains. “The big question is how will the grid cope with the surge in electricity demand at 6 am?”

Given that the cost of lithium-ion batteries was considered highly prohibitive as recently as a year ago, the expectation is that the scale of new projects and demand will continue to drive rapid innovations to enable more flexible grids during the energy transition.

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Published on 1 February 2025 and distributed to senior decision-makers in the region and around the world, the February MEED Business Review includes:

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