Since its launch, the Garadagh solar power plant (with a capacity of 230 megawatts) has already generated over 900 million kWh of green energy, Murad Sadikhov, head of the Masdar (UAE) representative office in Azerbaijan, said at the Azerbaijan & Central Asia Green Energy Week 2025 in Baku.
"We will soon celebrate an important milestone – 1 billion kWh of green energy. This is especially significant because at the time of implementation, the project was the largest solar power plant in the entire CIS," Sadikhov stated.
On January 9, 2020, the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan and Masdar signed an implementing agreement. The document provides for Masdar to implement a pilot project to build a 230 MW solar power plant in Azerbaijan. In this regard, on April 6, 2021, an investment agreement, a power sale and purchase agreement, and a grid connection agreement were signed between the Ministry of Energy and AzerEnergy OJSC and Masdar.
The solar power plant, one of the largest in the Caspian region and the CIS, was built 9 km northwest of the village of Alat. According to preliminary estimates, the plant will generate 500 million kWh of electricity annually, saving 110 million cubic meters of natural gas, preventing over 200,000 tons of carbon emissions, and providing electricity to 110,000 homes.
The total cost of the project is approximately $200 million and it was implemented entirely through foreign investment. The groundbreaking ceremony for the Garadagh solar power plant took place on March 15, 2022, with the participation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Mohammed Faraj Al Mazroui.
