Saudi Arabia's energy firm ACWA Power, which is developing the world's largest utility-scale green hydrogen facility in NEOM, plans to build three more giant green hydrogen projects in country, the company's chief executive Paddy Padmanathan told Bloomberg in an interview published on Thursday.
On Wednesday, ACWA Power said it had finalized and signed the financing agreements for the NEOM Green Hydrogen Project at a total investment cost of $8.5 billion, funded by a combination of long-term debt and equity. ACWA Power is developing the facility in a joint venture with Air Products and NEOM Company, with ACWA Power holding a 33.3% equity stake.
The NEOM Green Hydrogen Project is the world's largest utility-scale, commercially based hydrogen facility powered entirely by renewable energy, ACWA Power says. When commissioned in 2026, it will produce 600 tons per day of clean hydrogen by electrolysis using thyssenkrupp technology; production of nitrogen by air separation using Air Products technology; and production of up to 1.2 million tons per year of green ammonia.
In its earnings call today, ACWA Power said that the NEOM Green Hydrogen Project will have a higher cost than the original estimate of around $5 billion due to additional scope, cost inflation, and higher project financing costs, including interest.
"Acwa Power itself can do five of these projects without blinking," Padmanathan told Bloomberg, referring to projects similar in scale to NEOM's green hydrogen plant.
"Now that we have financially closed the first one, we are looking in parallel to two others," the executive said.
The two other plants could be adjacent to the NEOM hydrogen project, and the company is also looking at another site for a third such plant, Padmanathan told Bloomberg.
The next green hydrogen plants will likely be cheaper than the NEOM facility as developers gain more experience and technologies improve, he added.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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