On a mission to decarbonise Oman

December 18, 2025

David Kennedy, CEO of Solar Wadi, talks to The Energy Year about de-risking projects to attract international capital investors and the company’s growing pipeline of solar generation installations in government-backed residential and industrial developments. Solar Wadi is an Omani power company specialising in renewable energy generation.

Could you walk us through the main renewables projects Solar Wadi is developing or has planned in Oman?
We currently have the 93-MW Solar PV project at Sohar Industrial City in final development. It is set to reach commercial operations by mid-2026 and is designed to cover about 40% of the energy needs of the residents. Elsewhere, our development pipeline exceeds 1 GW, with our mandate being to deliver around 500 MWp cumulative capacity over the next three years.
The vision is to replicate Sohar’s holistic model across all 15 industrial cities under Madayn. Nizwa and Sur will require up to 30 MW each, and larger hubs such as Rusayl might need up to 60 MWp. Altogether, the Madayn portfolio could demand around 300 MWp of solar capacity.
In addition, we are pursuing B2B projects – we call them private wire solutions – for industrial consumers. We are targeting clients with energy needs in the 1-50 MW range. These include major steel and aluminium producers seeking renewable options. We offer assistance from the concept and pre-engineering stages with design input and guidance, even if we are not the final project developer.
Our objective is to remove barriers to decarbonisation wherever we can. We are already active on a few smaller projects, including at Oman Data Park and the Arab Open University in Muscat, to mention a few, for a total of around 5 MWp, with another 5-10 MWp of commercial and industrial solar projects to follow in early 2026.
Our plants can cover around 40% of the power needs of industrial facilities that run around the clock, and as much as 60% for daytime-only operations. This helps meet decarbonisation requirements, especially for exporters to the EU and the USA, where carbon taxes are being introduced. Reducing carbon footprints is both an environmental and economic imperative.

How does solar fit into Oman’s ambition to become a green hydrogen hub?
Green hydrogen is a national priority, and the green energy needed for production projects is massive. Some hydrogen plants under planning require up to 8 GW, when the entire national grid currently peaks at just above 7 GW. That gives you a sense of the scale of the ambition.
Electrolysers, the core of hydrogen production, must run 24/7 to be cost-effective, which means they will need solar, wind and large-scale battery storage working together. Battery storage is still expensive and challenging, but it is slowly approaching an economical scale.
Oman has the resources and land area to support gigawatt-scale projects, and we see this as a tremendous opportunity, not just for ourselves as developers but for Oman as a whole. No single technology or developer will be able to meet these needs alone – it will take co-ordination across the entire ecosystem.
Solar Wadi is wholly owned by Naqaa Sustainable Energy, a local government-backed entity with a mandate to deliver projects for renewable energy generation, which is growing on an almost month-to-month basis. With them, we have our mandate of 500 MW over the next three years, towards which our 93-MW project in Sohar represents a significant milestone.

 

What is required to make Oman’s larger renewables projects bankable?
There is no shortage of international capital looking for viable green projects, but bankability remains an issue. Most large-scale projects, especially in the EU and the USA, have succeeded thanks to state support through subsidies, soft loans and guarantees.
At present, Oman lacks such financial backing. Green finance mechanisms are emerging, but they are not mature enough to support billion-dollar investments. That increases project risk, and in a region as competitive as the Gulf, where neighbours such as Saudi Arabia are investing aggressively, delays can potentially result in missed opportunities.
We believe Oman will get there, but the pace needs to pick up. For any project to attract serious capital, it must be properly structured. Even government investment requires readiness; you cannot expect state funds to flow into concepts that have not been de-risked.

What is your assessment of the competitive environment in the Omani renewables sector?
We have seen a few international players enter and leave due to a number of factors, not least the slow pace of project development and the relatively young nature of the renewables market, but the market is developing, and interest has picked up again in the past few years.
One positive development is the introduction of the National Champion framework, under which key Omani entities are being earmarked for projects of certain scales. While that might deter some international developers, it can also be seen as an indication that the government is serious about backing projects.

How does Solar Wadi compare with large international solar developers?
We are a lean organisation that can reach decisions quickly, which makes us easier to work with from the customers’ point of view, as we can tailor our solutions and adapt rapidly to client needs.
Also, having become fully Omani-owned is a major advantage with national stakeholders such as Madayn and others. We are able to build local capabilities through Omanisation and by prioritising local content while following global best practices.
The renewable energy sector is still young in Oman, so for our larger projects, we bring in international EPC partners with proven expertise and supply chains to work closely with domestic EPCs and suppliers, encouraging the transfer of know-how. Over time, we aim to source the majority of our needs domestically, which is central to Oman Vision 2040 and vital for building a self-sustaining renewables sector.

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