MEE 2021: Middle East family businesses need PPA support to develop renewables

Engie Saudi Arabia CEO says regulators can help family-owned businesses to develop renewable energy schemes

Large family-owned business in the Middle East should be supported to develop renewable energy projects in order to accelerate the region’s net-zero aspirations according to Turki AlShehri, CEO of Engie Saudi Arabia. 

Speaking at the Middle East Energy Online 2021 conference, Mr AlShehri said that potential partnerships between clean energy companies and regional family businesses were being held back by the family-owned businesses lacking a credit rating. 

 “These [family-owned] businesses create the vast majority of employment across the region and would offer a significant opportunity for energy companies if they were properly credit-rated,” AlShehri told a panel discussion. “If this is not possible then maybe a credit guarantee system could be set up by governments that would allow them to finance large-scale renewable energy facilities that could power their businesses.”

Much of the utility-scale renewables capacity being developed in the Middle East is through power-purchase agreements (PPA), where a private developer finances the construction and operation and maintenance (O&M) of the plant for a period of 20-25 years, receiving a tariff for the electricity produced from the offtaker. 

Middle East Energy Online 2021 is being held over a four week period in May and June 2021.