Saudi-based pan-Arab development bank Apicorp announced on 20 July that it is providing a $50mn credit facility to Dubai’s Siraj Power to help expand its portfolio of distributed solar power projects across the Middle East. The bank says it will enable Siraj to deploy rooftop solar PV across a variety of industries, offering “an innovative structure” to finance rooftop solar on a long-term basis. Siraj claims the largest distributed solar portfolio in the UAE with more than 50MW of installed capacity and says it offers EPC, operation and maintenance as well as financing.

Apicorp says its strategy includes increased focus on renewables, with $450mn of funding committed to projects in the past four years. Its first renewables deal was $110mn of finance for Shuaa Energy 2, a joint venture of Abu Dhabi’s Masdar and France’s EDF, to build the 800MW phase three of the MBR Solar Park in Dubai, completed in May (MEES, 5 June). (CONTINUED - 155 WORDS)