The funding for a green hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia’s megaproject NEOM, is set to be completed in the upcoming months, according to ACWA Power Co., Bloomberg reported.
The project, valued at $5 billion, has begun construction in the north-west of the kingdom, and is “very much on track” to be finished by 2026, ACWA’s chief executive officer Paddy Padmanathan told Bloomberg.
“We expect to complete the full financing before the end of this year,” Padmanathan said at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt. “We are almost done.”
ACWA, which is the kingdom’s biggest renewable energy firm, is a member of the consortium leading the green hydrogen project. US-based Air Products & Chemicals Inc is also involved in the project.
The equity partners have put in about $900 million of their own money, Padmanathan said.
“Saudi Arabia wants to be the world’s main exporter of hydrogen. The fuel only emits water vapor when burned, making it less polluting than oil, natural gas and coal. The technology for producing it on a mass scale is still unproven, but the market could be worth $700 billion annually by 2050 if manufacturers can bring down costs,” according to BloombergNEF.
