Turkey draws EBRD and Acwa Power commitments to its clean-energy push at COP31

Turkey is using its COP31 presidency to pull multilateral capital and foreign developer commitments into its renewables buildout, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledging USD 6 bn in project financing to the country’s clean-energy platform over five years and Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power finalizing the framework of the next phase of its planned USD 5 bn pipeline in the country.

#1- Saudi and Turkey formalized the second phase of their 5 GW renewables framework, after the pair signed an MoU on Tuesday on electricity-project cooperation that builds on a government-to-government agreement first struck in February. Acwa Power is the Saudi-designated investor, with the 2 GW first phase — two 1 GW solar plants at Sivas and Karaman-Taşeli. The first phase development is yet to close financing, but Acwa has already secured 25-year power purchase agreements at tariffs of EUR 0.0199-0.0235 per kWh, the lowest ever awarded in Turkey.

The timeline: The first phase of the project will break ground in late 2026, with construction starting in 2027 and commercial operation in early 2028. The 3 GW second phase, formalized this week, covers wind farms, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission, and battery storage, Acwa Chairman Mohammad Abunayyan said.

#2- The EBRD is backstopping Turkey’s new overarching clean-energy platform with a USD 6 bn financing pledge over the next five years, the bank announced on Wednesday. The money will go toward projects under Turkey’s Renewable Energy Acceleration and Clean Transition Platform (REACT), designed to mobilize USD 300 bn in investment by 2040 across power generation, grid infrastructure, storage, manufacturing, and electrification. The platform is also supported by the EU, the World Bank, and the IFC, and is pitched as the vehicle for lifting Turkey’s installed electricity capacity from roughly 128 GW today to 281 GW by 2040.

Oman is making moves too

Oman signed two new green hydrogen development agreements at the Duqm Special Economic Zone under Hydrom’s third auction round, the state’s Oman News Agency reports. A consortium of Oman’s Petrogas E&P and Italy’s Bio3Energy Srl wants to build a 625k-tonnes-per-year green ammonium nitrate plant backed by 1.2 GW of renewables, targeting the fertilizer and mining sectors. A separate consortium of PLN Indonesia Power Renewables, Oman’s Alawi Enterprises, and Singapore’s HBA Future Energy (formerly HBA Offshore International) will develop a 400k-tonnes-per-year green ammonia project backed by 1.5 GW of solar for export.

Together, the projects target 121k tonnes per year of combined green hydrogen output by 2032. Oman expects first commercial green hydrogen production in 2027 from India-headquartered Acme Group’s plant, also at Duqm.

But the new MoUs run against the grain of the IEA’s latest read of the sector. In its Renewables 2026 report published last week (which we unpack in depth below), the agency scaled back Oman’s renewable capacity forecast from last year’s projections “mainly because of weaker prospects for renewable hydrogen.” The agency specifically flagged two projects awarded in earlier Hydrom rounds that were cancelled after consortia failed to secure offtakers, and other awarded projects whose final investment decisions are dragging out longer than they should.