OUR STRATEGY

New frontiers of energy transition

We strive to be a leader in all our businesses across geographies, targeting high-growth economies as our geographic expansion landscape.

Reliably and responsibly delivering power, desalinated water and green hydrogen to our customers
Number one position in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • Maintain the number one position in our home market.
  • Support KSA’s Vision 2030 and its long-term energy objectives.
Develop multiple stronghold countries
  • Continue expansion via our stronghold countries model.
  • Strengthen our position in existing stronghold countries.
  • Develop new stronghold markets.
  • Continue portfolio optimisation via M&A or divestments.
Multi-technology and own operator
  • Experienced developer and operator across a broad technology spectrum for power (PV, Wind, CSP, CCGT), water desalination (SWRO), and green hydrogen.
  • Exploit new opportunities in green hydrogen.
  • At the forefront of energy transition
    • No investment in coal and oil.
    • Net zero by 2050 with interim 2030 target to reduce specific emission intensity of our portfolio by 50% from where it stood in 2020.

Central role in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s energy transition

ACWA Power will continue to lead the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s energy transition as a national and global champion.

The Kingdom’s energy transition goals require not only development of over 60 GW of new renewable plants but also conversion of the existing HFO (heavy fuel oil-fired) power and water plants.

ACWA Power and the PIF entered into a strategic agreement for ACWA Power to, in addition to being a shareholder, lead the development of a large part of the KSA’s renewables target, especially the 40+ GW PIF renewable pipeline.

We have 5.6 GW of PV projects currently in operation, under construction or in advanced development in the Kingdom plus a large pipeline of projects under both the PIF renewables programme and the Ministry of Energy programmes (previously known as REPDO programme).

Our overall strategy is to be at the forefront of energy transition by delivering reliable and responsible power, desalinated water and green hydrogen at low cost in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the wider GCC and attractive high-growth markets based on a de-risked and contracted business model.
Overall balanced asset portfolio
Overall balanced asset portfolio
Continue to leverage our unique business model
Continue to leverage our unique business model
Ensure financial strength and flexibility to fund high growth
Ensure financial strength and flexibility to fund high growth
The key tenets of this strategy are:
  • Leadership in KSA and selected high-growth markets.
  • Focus on driving the energy transition and wider environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) agenda in all targeted markets.
  • Utilise the centralised, multi-technology expertise of our wholly owned O&M company, NOMAC, as the O&M contractor of our assets.

We are already the number one private player in Saudi Arabia in power, water and green hydrogen, and we believe this will only be reinforced by our leading contribution in the country’s energy transition, the vast majority of which will be led by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF), our largest shareholder.

Already in 12 markets, we will continuously assess potential opportunities in these and other new international markets that are selected through a rigorous internal investment decision process.

As an early mover in green hydrogen and sustainable giga-scale multi-utility projects, we will continue to exploit further opportunities in KSA, our existing markets and other new international markets.

As a dedicated leader in the energy transition that is taking place in the world, we will increasingly be renewable-focused, with no investment in projects based on coal or oil, in our journey to achieve net zero by 2050.

At the foundation of this strategy, we seek to maintain a balanced portfolio, adhere to our winning business model and ensure continuous financial strength.

Our strategy

Leadership in our business lines

As we focus on delivering energy transition, renewable power and green hydrogen will continue to receive the larger share of our investments over the coming years.

On the water desalination side, ACWA Power is already the largest private desalinated water producer in the world and we aim to significantly grow our business both inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as in existing and new markets outside the Kingdom. We are also pursuing initiatives to continue reducing specific power consumption in KWh/m3 of water produced to maintain our leadership position and to increase the renewable energy content in desalinated water and to keep reducing the environmental impact of desalination by reducing chemical inputs and enhanced brine management.

We acknowledge that natural gas will continue to function as a lower-carbon emitting transition fuel source for some years to go. Nevertheless, we remain committed to our goal of net zero emissions by 2050.


Renewables
  • We are one of the world’s largest renewables players, and the largest in the Middle East and Africa.
  • We broke several renewables records in recent years – world’s lowest tariffs on PV and CSP, world’s largest CSP complex.
  • We will continue to support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s energy strategy as a national and global champion and lead the rollout of the Kingdom’s ambitious renewables agenda – both PV and wind – even as we expand our renewables portfolio in markets across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Green hydrogen
  • Our 4 GW Neom Green Hydrogen Project currently under construction in Saudi Arabia is the largest at-scale plant under construction in the world.
  • It is the first of many at-scale green hydrogen projects we aim to develop, and our ambition extends well beyond Saudi Arabia.
  • We are forming partnerships and developing our project pipeline to be a major green hydrogen and derivatives player on the world stage.
Water desalination
  • We have focused R&D initiatives to lower the energy consumption in our water desalination plants.
  • We look to develop more innovative “green” water desalination projects powered wholly or partially by renewables.
  • The Taweelah IWP in the UAE, expected to achieve its commercial operation in 2023, will be partially solar powered. It is the world’s largest reverse osmosis water desalination plant and it will utilise the lowest SPC (specific power consumption) per cubic metre of water produced.
  • We will also look to grow our water desalination business into key new markets outside of the GCC.
Conventional Power
  • Following one divestment and one conversion in 2022, we currently have three oil-fired assets in our portfolio of 68 assets.
  • For our oil and other gas-fired assets, we continue to explore several decarbonisation pathways involving innovative solutions from introducing green hydrogen into the fuel mix for our existing gas assets to carbon capture and sequestration technologies, to carbon offsets.
Organisational ramp up to deliver on growth

We have a strong aspiration to expand our portfolio both within Saudi Arabia and outside. As a national and global champion for Saudi Arabia our ambition is to maintain a strong leadership position in each of our power, water and green hydrogen business lines by accelerating growth relative to historical levels.

To do this, we will build on the strengths that have been key to our past success, as well as build up the organisation to deliver effectively and efficiently against our goals.

Our past success has been delivered through our mastery of greenfield business development; our Develop, Invest, Operate and Optimise business model; our agile and risk-taking approach to development; a scalable and well-oiled O&M business line; an entrepreneurial and innovation-driven culture; and a well-integrated organisation structure that has proven time and again ACWA Power’s competitive advantage to win and deliver on projects.

While retaining these competitive advantages, we are preparing to ramp up our growth by investing across dimensions of our organisation that will drive our business forward: digitalisation; governance; increased focus on R&D and innovation; our people; and talent management.

People & culture

ACWA Power’s three core values are safety, people, and performance. Because of its “people”, ACWA Power has, since its inception, been able to challenge the market and succeed; primarily due to its entrepreneurial mindset and the ability of its people to find innovatie ways to deliver.

ACWA Power needs a competent and committed workforce capable of delivering growth and responding effectively to a rapidly evolving marketplace. This can only be achieved by having the ability to attract, develop, engage, and retain staff with the right skills in the right positions and at the right time.

Our people strategy’s immediate focus will be on:

  • Enabling agility by maintaining a collaborative and entrepreneurial mindset.
  • ACWA Power’s employee value position, incorporating our culture and values.
  • Best-in-class performance management framework.
  • Leadership and management development programmes.
  • Promoting a workplace culture to foster an environment that supports the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of all our employees and that celebrates and embraces diversity.
  • Leveraging technology to streamline HR processes.
  • Acknowledging our employees by rolling out corporate wide peer-to-peer recognition programmes.

Stronger innovation focus

ACWA Power’s Technology and Innovation Strategy focuses on technological value-creating innovations and R&D initiatives that can help to give the Сompany a competitive edge.

  • For the technologies currently on the market and within our business development strategy, the innovation focus is on improving Operational Excellence, mainly through leveraging our internal innovation dynamics, with the aim to improve bottom line results for our assets.
  • For selected technologies expected to enter the market within five years, the innovation focus is on co-development, by running pilots and demonstration projects, partnering with OEMs, venture capitalists and selected startups, and finally collaborative R&D in partnership with universities and select R&D players in our existing and target markets.
  • Our aim is to secure IP rights and obtain a strong competitive advantage (preferential use of technology or first user position). Stretch targets are defined to reach disruptive market impact.

Digitalisation will set us up as we lead energy transition

ACWA Power’s digitisation strategy is aimed at enabling the Company through a collaborative, data driven platform that pushes efficiency, provides a strong knowledge ecosystem for decision making, and enhances the work experience.

Some of the near-term objectives envisioned under the digitalisation strategy that are largely AI driven include:

  • Fully connected & automated plants driven by IoT, edge & MPC.
  • AI driven financial, employee central, digital workplace, procurement, operation & risk simulation and metaverse collaboration & training ecosystems.
  • Safety augmented reality journey, driven by AI assistants.
  • Data & insights driven organisation, AI & ML capabilities embedded improvement, fed back into our operative and self-autonomous processes.
  • Digital worker: full connected, extended reality assisted; AI driven & field mobile boosted.