By: AGBI

Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power is to develop a 230-megawatt power plant in Mauritania for $700 million.

The renewables company, backed by the Public Investment Fund, has signed 25-year public-private partnership agreements and gas-to-electricity conversion deals with the Mauritanian government and the state-backed utility provider, Somelec.

The work scope includes design, financing, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance of the N’Diago combined-cycle gas turbine power plant, Acwa said in a statement to the Saudi stock exchange.

The Saudi company will hold 60 percent of Ndiago Power Co, the project company.

In December 2023, UAE renewable energy company Amea Power said it planned to develop a 1-gigawatt-scale electrolyser project in Mauritania. It is also building a 100MW wind farm and a 100MW solar photovoltaic plant in the country, de-risking the development of the green hydrogen plant.

Last month Acwa leased land in the Philippines to build a 500MW solar plant.

Shares in Acwa Power, which is 44 percent owned by PIF, rose 2.8 percent to close at SAR194 on Tuesday. The shares are up nearly 7 percent so far this year.