Turkey’s drive to attract Gulf investment into its energy sector just got a jolt: On Oct. 14, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar announced that Ankara was nearing a roughly $1 billion deal with United Arab Emirates state-owned renewables developer Masdar to build a large-scale solar power plant in central Turkey.

In a post on X, Bayraktar said Turkey and the Emirati company had reached the “final phase” of talks for a 1,100-megawatt solar project with battery storage in the Nigde province. The deal, if finalized, would represent Masdar's entry to the Turkish market and could serve as a breakthrough in renewable energy collaboration with Gulf states that have eyed wind and solar projects in the country in recent years. But progress has been slow, with few deals materializing. 

Details: The potential Masdar deal arrives as part of Turkey’s goal to quadruple wind and solar power capacity to 120 gigawatts by 2035, a target that Bayraktar said last December would require an estimated $108 billion in public and private investment.

On paper, deep-pocketed Gulf investors are natural partners to help advance Ankara’s renewables push, leading to a string of headlines around potential investments in recent years. In 2022, Abu Dhabi's International Holding Company acquired a 50% stake in Turkey's Kalyon Enerji, which owns wind and solar assets.