UAE’s Al Nowais plans $500m renewable energy fund

United Arab Emirates businessman Hussain Al Nowais is planning a $500m fund to spur renewable energy investments across the Middle East and Africa.

Clean power is growing increasingly attractive for Middle Eastern oil producers as falling costs for solar and wind plants allow those states to free valuable crude and natural gas for export.

Other countries in the region or in Africa that are poor in fuels burned for electricity are looking to renewable energy to cut hefty import bills and bring power to areas that are not already supplied.

Al Nowais is raising the fund “given the need for expansion and given the need for additional capital” for renewable energy projects, he said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Al Nowais said he is in talks with “several institutional and local investors” about contributing to the fund.

AMEA Power, a developer of solar and wind plants of which Al Nowais is chairman, will raise about $300m in an initial funding round within the next three months, he said.

The fund will likely increase to $500m in a second round, Al Nowais said.

AMEA Power’s biggest market is Egypt. In December, it signed agreements to supply a combined 700 megawatts of power at one solar and one wind power plant there.

The company will target opportunities in countries like Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia as well as in southern and Central Asia, he said.