Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), the UAE’s clean energy powerhouse, announced the closing of its acquisition of a 50 percent stake in Terra-Gen Power Holdings, one of the largest independent renewable energy producers in the United States, from Energy Capital Partners (ECP).
Marking one of Masdar’s largest transactions, the deal further cements the company’s position in the U.S. Masdar first entered the U.S. market in 2019 and has a proven history of funding, developing, owning, and operating clean energy projects in the country.
“The UAE and U.S. have long been partners in efforts to advance clean energy, a collaboration culminating in the Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE) agreement,” stated Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, COP28 president and chairman of Masdar.
Masdar advances 2030 target
Following Masdar’s acquisition, ECP, one of the largest private investors in power and renewable assets in the United States, has fully exited its position in Terra-Gen. Igneo Infrastructure Partners, a global infrastructure investment manager, will retain its existing 50 percent stake in Terra-Gen.
Before the Terra-Gen acquisition, Masdar’s U.S. portfolio of utility scale wind, solar and storage assets had a generating capacity of more than 1.4GW. The U.S. market and Terra-Gen’s scalable platform is a key milestone in Masdar’s plan to build 100GW of capacity in its global renewable energy portfolio by 2030.
“Masdar has a strong track record of supporting U.S. renewable energy projects, and the acquisition of Terra-Gen reaffirms this long-standing commitment. We are now on target to surpass our goal of having 10GW of integrated renewable generation capacity in the U.S. by 2030,” added Al Jaber.
Terra-Gen’s expansive U.S. pipeline
Terra-Gen’s gross operating portfolio currently comprises 3.8GW of wind, solar, and battery storage projects. This also includes 5.1GWh of energy storage facilities across 30 renewable power sites throughout the U.S., predominantly in California and Texas.
The company is currently developing more than 12GW of wind, solar, and battery storage projects in the U.S. Its development activities include projects in California, Texas and New York. The project pipeline also includes 386MW of Texas wind and California solar, and 512MWh of California energy storage facilities, with commercial operations likely beginning in 2025.
“The finalization of this deal cements a strong relationship between Masdar and Terra-Gen. Masdar is a great partner for Terra-Gen because of our shared focus on developing clean energy projects and our commitment to decarbonization. We look forward to working with them to expand and build on our pipeline of U.S. projects,” noted Jim Pagano, CEO of Terra-Gen.
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$20 billion to fund U.S. clean energy projects
Masdar’s commitment to the U.S. market reflects the UAE’s strong ties to the country. In January 2023, UAE and U.S. officials announced that $20 billion will be allocated to fund 15GW of clean energy projects in the U.S. before 2035, led by Masdar and a consortium of U.S. private investors, under the Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE) between the two countries.
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