Gulf capital keeps flowing into gigawatt-scale power — and it’s landing in Africa as much as in the Gulf itself.
Three developments from the past week underline where deal flow is concentrating: UAE balance sheets financing scale at home, and UAE-sponsored platforms pushing African solar from paper to steel.
What we’re tracking today:
Masdar closed financing on its USD 6.1bn Round-the-Clock project in Abu Dhabi — a 5.2 GW solar plant paired with a 19 GWh battery system delivering 1 GW of continuous clean power from 2027. USD 5.1bn came from a 13-bank consortium, USD 1bn from Masdar’s own equity. It’s the clearest signal yet that solar-plus-storage is being underwritten as baseload, not intermittent supply.
Infinity Power — the Masdar/Infinity Energy JV — signed three EPC agreements at the Africa Energy Forum: roughly 774 MW of solar across two South African clusters and the 1.2 GW Nefer Minya project in Egypt, EBRD-financed and paired with storage. Pipeline is converting into construction contracts.
South Africa’s NERSA approved generation licences for 890 MW of solar from Red Rocket and Engie under REIPPPP Bid Window 7.3 — confirmation the country’s procurement pipeline keeps clearing, project by project.
At Persimmon Investments, that’s the map we invest against: GCC balance sheets underwriting scale, African pipelines converting to construction.