Masdar finds AI data centers greener than hydrogen energy

Abu Dhabi’s Masdar green energy company is shifting gears to focus on meeting the voracious power needs of AI data centers.

After budgeting billions of dollars for developing green hydrogen into a commercial fuel, Masdar has found few buyers and decided to reallocate its resources, Bloomberg reports.

For Masdar, which is owned by the ADNOC national oil company, the TAQA national energy company, and the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, lower-than-expected revenue figures told the story, CEO Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi says.

“Today, green hydrogen is under pressure and the market is shrinking. A lot of people who went into this venture are out. We are not,” Al Ramahi told Bloomberg. “But we also need to respect global dynamics.” 

In the renewables industry, Masdar is not alone. Many of its peers around the world have invested deeply in green hydrogen amid broad excitement over the fuel’s promise for providing clean, cheap and plentiful energy. Weak demand and high costs, however, have forced the industry to pull back.

Instead, Masdar has decided to divert the money toward an expected boom in power consumption from AI data centers, Al Ramahi said. One of the world’s biggest such projects is the $545 million facility that the UAE’s du telecom company is planning with Microsoft.

“My basic business mandate isn’t hydrogen or aluminum or whatever,” Al-Ramahi said. “It is green electron capacity.”

In another area of its business, Al-Rahimi said Tuesday that a Masdar-led consortium has secured $1.1 billion in financing from eight regional and international banks to support development of the 2-gigawatt Al Sadawi solar power plant in Saudi Arabia.

Masdar chases European green energy projects after Endesa deal

UAE renewables company Masdar says it will continue to chase green energy projects in Europe, where high interest rates and rising debt costs are pushing utilities to sell stakes in wind farms and solar plants.

Masdar, which is owned by Mubadala, ADNOC and Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., has a goal of reaching 100 gigawatts of capacity in its portfolio by 2030 and has been quick to pounce on European projects that will help it rapidly scale up.

Last week it reached an $885 million agreement with Madrid-based Endesa to buy a 49.9% share of 48 solar farms with 2 gigawatts of capacity.

And in June it agreed to buy a majority stake in Greece’s biggest renewables company Terna Energy, in a deal that valued the company at $3.4 billion.

Masdar CFO Mazin Khan told Reuters that “normalization” of asset prices had created big opportunities in Europe and the Endesa deal was just a first step in its investment plans. 

The Daily Circuit: UAE doubles down on nuclear + Property tycoon Alabbar grows empire

👋 Hello from the Middle East!

Today in The Daily Circuit, we’re looking at the expanding empire of Mohamed Alabbar, shrewd fee changes at Abu Dhabi Global Market, a flurry of green energy joint ventures from the PIF and the who’s who courtside at Etihad Arena for Team USA. But first, the UAE is looking to double down on nuclear energy. 

Amid efforts by all the Gulf states to wean their economies off dependence on oil and develop alternative fuels, the UAE is pushing to get more of its power from nuclear energy.

Four months after the UAE’s Barakah nuclear plant became 100% operational, the government is exploring the possibility of building a second nuclear facility, Reuters reports.

“The government is looking at this option, Hamad Alkaabi, the UAE’s Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the UN’s nuclear agency, told the news agency. “No final decision has been made in terms of the tender process but I can tell you that the government is actively exploring this option.”

Any contract for a new nuclear power plant would be worth tens of billions of dollars and could attract tender bids from China, Russia and the U.S., among others, Reuters said. The government has yet to budget for a second power plant or decide on the size or the location, but Alkaabi said it was possible a tender could be issued this year.