Abu Dhabi’s Masdar to Build 200-Megawatt Solar Plant in Jordan

Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Masdar will build a solar plant in Jordan with capacity to produce 200 megawatts of energy, according to Ibrahim Saif, Jordan’s minister of energy and mineral resources.The project will cost about $200 million, Saif said in an interview in Abu Dhabi. An agreement is expected to be signed this week. “We will make an announcement on our activities in the kingdom in due course,” Ahmad Belhoul, chief executive officer of Masdar, said in an e-mail. “Jordan is an important market for Masdar, and we continue to explore various project opportunities there.”

Masdar plans to bid for power projects in Jordan after starting a 117 megawatt wind farm in the kingdom last year, Belhoul said in an interview last week. The new deal with Jordan is a power purchase agreement for about 15 years, Saif said. Jordan is likely to provide land and logistics if needed as well as a link to its electricity grid, he said.

Jordan plans to have 500 megawatts of wind and solar power capacity by the end of this year as the country boosts the amount of electricity produced with renewable energy, Saif said in a statement on Saturday. Of the planned 1,000 megawatts of projects being developed in the kingdom, 170 megawatts are already operational and the rest is expected to come online by 2018, the ministry said.

Source:Bloomberg Business