Back in 2004, Saudi Arabia turned to the private sector to share the responsibility for generating electricity and producing desalinated water by using private public partnerships. Our founding shareholders saw an opportunity to use this domestic platform to create a world class developer of high-performing assets that competes  with peers from the developed world. By 2009 we had amassed a powerful portfolio and took our first step outside Saudi Arabia with the strategic acquisition of a 58% share of Barka 1 IWPP, an operational plant in the Sultanate of Oman.

We have established three international offices, in Dubai, Beijing and Istanbul, and our employee base has grown substantially. We are  able to hire the best talent in the sector to fuel our growth strategy . Much of the glory for our achievements rightfully belongs to our multi-disciplinary team of employees who bring a wide range of skills to our entrepreneurial organization.

Considerable work has been undertaken in strengthening the company through organizational development and the institutionalization of processes and procedures will remain an ongoing work in progress for the medium term

We have achieved our  objectives of  building a team and assembling a world class portfolio of projects and implementing our next  plan which is based  on our proven ability to reliably dispatch water and power.

We have a series of ambitious but well defined growth targets  to assemble, by 2014, a portfolio approaching 30,000 MW gross contracted capacity of power and five million m³/day of gross desalinated water, including:

• new Greenfield production capacity of 9,000 MW of power and 1 million m³/day of desalinated water;
• acquisitions of operating capacity of 15,000 MW of power and 1.5 million m³/day of desalinated water;
• Approximately 5% of our power generating capacity from renewable energy sources, principally from solar power.

These may appear to be aggressive targets, but they are achievable by consolidating half our portfolio within Saudi Arabia and the remainder from international opportunities. We plan to be present in at least four other countries and one other geographic region by 2014, with assets in the GCC, Jordan, Turkey, North Africa and South Africa.

Recognizing the importance of managing our carbon footprint and taking advantage of the solid commercial opportunities, we have already invested in learning about solar power. We remain convinced that MENA region is ready to embrace this energy source in the near future.

Paddy Padmanathan