Dubai refinances the 950 MW Noor Energy 1 solar plant with $2.7 billion
Victoria Shinder1 min readThe Dubai Electricity and Water Authority has refinanced Noor Energy 1, the 950 MW solar complex that combines 700 MW of concentrated solar power with 250 MW of photovoltaics, replacing its original project debt with $2.7 billion of new borrowing. DEWA chief executive Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said the deal closed well ahead of schedule, according to pv magazine.
DEWA did not name the lenders or disclose the tenor, pricing or expected savings. Al Tayer said the refinancing optimised financing costs and would bring substantial savings over the plant's life, and that lenders had committed in a market marked by liquidity concerns and interest rate volatility.
Noor Energy 1 is the fourth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. It pairs a 600 MW parabolic trough plant and a 100 MW solar tower with the PV array, and DEWA describes it as the world's largest single-site CSP project, with up to 15 hours of thermal storage. The plant is owned by DEWA, ACWA Power and China's Silk Road Fund. It reached financial close in March 2019 at a cost of AED 15.78 billion, about $4.3 billion, with tariffs of $0.073 per kWh for CSP and $0.024 per kWh for PV.
What it means
Refinancing an operating plant is a sign that lenders now price it as an infrastructure asset rather than a construction risk: the technology has run, the output is known and the offtaker is a state utility. Without the new rate or tenor there is no way to size the saving from outside. The headline figure shows only that about $2.7 billion of debt was placed against a plant that cost about $4.3 billion to build.