• Masdar and Azerbaijan Green Energy Company agreed on September 15, 2026 to expand the 230MW Garadagh solar plant by at least 350MW and add up to 200MWh of battery storage.
• A proposed 100MW round-the-clock renewable plant in Nakhchivan would replicate the design of Masdar's $6.1 billion, 5.2GW solar-plus-19GWh-storage project with Emirates Water and Electricity Company in Abu Dhabi.
• The expansion sits alongside Masdar's 315MW Neftchala solar project with Socar Green, which reached financial close in 2026 with multilateral development-bank financing.
• No capital cost, financing structure or construction timeline has been disclosed for either the Garadagh expansion or the Nakhchivan plant — this is a scope agreement, not a priced project.
• The deal was witnessed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, underscoring its state-to-state profile beyond a routine corporate expansion.

Masdar has signed a new agreement with Azerbaijan Green Energy Company (Agec) to expand its flagship Garadagh solar plant and explore round-the-clock renewable power in Azerbaijan, according to a September 15, 2026 announcement reported by AGBI and confirmed by Gulf News. The deal, witnessed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, adds at least 350 megawatts and up to 200 megawatt-hours of battery storage to the existing 230MW Garadagh plant, and puts a 100MW baseload project in Nakhchivan on the table — though neither side has disclosed a cost, financing structure or timeline.

The Garadagh Math

Garadagh, inaugurated in 2023 as the largest solar plant in the South Caucasus, already generates 230MW. The expansion terms call for a minimum of 350MW of additional capacity — more than doubling the site's footprint — plus up to 200MWh of battery storage, according to Gulf News's account of the September 15, 2026 signing. Neither AGBI nor Gulf News reported a capital-expenditure figure or a construction timeline for the expansion, and Masdar's own newsroom had not published a matching release as of this writing, so the numbers should be read as agreed scope, not a priced project.

The Abu Dhabi Blueprint

The reference point for Azerbaijan's proposed 100MW round-the-clock plant is Masdar's project with Emirates Water and Electricity Company in Abu Dhabi: a $6.1 billion, 5.2-gigawatt solar array paired with 19 gigawatt-hours of battery storage designed to deliver up to 1GW of baseload renewable output continuously, which reached financial close in July 2026, per Gulf News. Masdar CEO Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi said the Agec agreement gives the company room to expand Garadagh, add storage and explore round-the-clock power — language that frames Nakhchivan as an early-stage study, not a committed build.

The Wider Book — Why This Deal, Why Now

The Garadagh expansion lands alongside two other data points on Masdar's Azerbaijan book: the 315MW Neftchala solar project, developed with Socar Green, reached financial close in 2026 with backing from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank, and is expected to generate more than 686 million kilowatt-hours a year. Taken together, the signings point to Masdar scaling a multi-gigawatt Azerbaijan pipeline that began with the 2023 Garadagh inauguration — a pattern of sovereign-linked UAE capital following prior project execution rather than opening cold in a new market.

What's Confirmed, What Isn't

Confirmed: the September 15, 2026 signing, witnessed at head-of-state level, and the specific MW/MWh figures for Garadagh's expansion scope, as reported by AGBI and Gulf News. Not yet confirmed: a capital cost for the expansion, a financial-close date, an off-take or tariff structure, or a construction timeline for either the Garadagh add-on or the Nakhchivan round-the-clock plant. Readers tracking Masdar's balance-sheet exposure or Abu Dhabi sovereign-fund flows into the Caucasus should treat this as a scope agreement — the capital-commitment stage that typically follows a signing like this has not yet been disclosed.