The Scoop
Infrastructure investor Stonepeak will develop renewable energy projects in the Middle East under a newly created investment platform, tapping into pent-up demand from a region looking to hit ambitious renewable energy targets by the end of this decade.
The $76 billion alternative investment firm’s new platform, WahajPeak, will invest in utility-scale renewable energy projects including solar, wind, and battery storage developments in the Gulf, as well as across the Middle East and North Africa, according to a statement shared with Semafor.
It has hired Mothana Qteishat, a UAE-based renewables executive, to lead the initiative, and will lean on growing offices in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, both of which were opened in the last two years.
Know More
Stonepeak’s new investment vehicle builds on a $1 billion deal in May with the Arab Energy Fund, an investment consortium of the 10 Arab oil-exporting countries, to back energy infrastructure projects in the region.
Middle East and North African countries are on track to triple their renewable energy capacity by 2030 to 150GW, according to the International Energy Agency, as hundreds of billions of dollars — particularly among the oil-producing nations — are being poured into the energy transition.
Saudi Arabia in particular is a waking giant as the world’s biggest crude oil exporter taps alternatives to reduce its domestic petroleum consumption and diversify its economy.
The Public Investment Fund-backed ACWA Power alone is on track to develop 78 GW of capacity in the kingdom by 2030, enough to provide all the electricity that Saudi Arabia generated from oil last year, with more planned from other developers, the energy writer David Fickling noted in a recent Bloomberg column.
Stonepeak, which has investments in energy, logistics, and digital infrastructure, has rolled out similar platforms in North America, Asia, and Europe to bring green energy projects to bear. The firm has a total of 10.4 GW of capacity in operation or in the pipeline across wind, solar, and battery energy storage systems.
Notable
- Global renewable energy capacity recorded its largest-ever annual expansion in 2024, but Semafor reported that is still short of the pace needed to achieve the COP28 goal of tripling capacity by 2030.