Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, ADQ, and American private equity firm, Energy Capital Partners (ECP), have inked a $25 billion investment deal to increase power generation, primarily in the United States.
The partnership will see both firms invest equally to deploy capital towards generating more than 25 gigawatts of power with the aim to service the rapidly increasing energy demands of hyperscale cloud companies, data centres, and other power-hungry industries.
His Excellency Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi, managing director and group CEO of ADQ, said: “The acceleration of AI and its societal adoption presents attractive opportunities to serve the power and infrastructure needs of data centres and hyperscalers.
“Meeting these power needs presents evolving challenges for governments worldwide in ensuring secure, stable, and commercially competitive electricity supply. As an active investor with a sharp focus on critical infrastructure and proven capability in building long-term partnerships, we are in a prime position to help address these shifting structural dynamics.
“Our partnership with ECP allows us to invest meaningfully in generation and related infrastructure assets that support accelerating demand for power, promoting the progress of these industries and helping to future-proof economies.”
Meanwhile Doug Kimmelman, ECP’s founder and executive chairman, commented: “AI will be a major driver of US economic and job growth over the coming decade, but not unless ample new electricity supplies are developed.
“We are honoured to build an investing partnership with ADQ to provide the electricity resources demanded by the rapidly growing AI data centre sector where the build out of new power generation resources or ‘additionality’ in the US will require significant, patient capital with a long-term horizon.
“Given the tightening supply/demand dynamics in US power markets, new generation capacity will be needed and our focus in this partnership will therefore primarily be on new build natural gas fired power generation assets in scale to meet the needs of hyperscalers on a timely basis.”
According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global electricity consumption is set to rise at its fastest rate in years, driven in part by the increasing demands of data centres and industrial electrification.
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