Masdar-EDF, Emirates Bank Unite to Expand UAE Rooftop Solar Market

• Emerge taps Emirates Development Bank to finance distributed solar across the UAE, unlocking zero-up-front installations for factories, malls, and schools.

Emerge, the year-old joint venture between Abu Dhabi clean-energy champion Masdar and France’s EDF Group, has enlisted Emirates Development Bank (EDB) as a strategic financing partner for its fast-growing portfolio of distributed solar projects in the United Arab Emirates.

Under the memorandum announced on Thursday, EDB will make tailored credit lines and export-finance guarantees available to EPC contractors and equipment suppliers working with Emerge. The partnership is designed to speed deployment of rooftop and car-park solar arrays at commercial, industrial, and government facilities—sites that often struggle to fund installations up front despite strong interest in cutting electricity bills and carbon footprints.

Emerge’s business model removes that hurdle: the venture owns and operates the systems, charging clients for power through long-term offtake agreements pegged below grid tariffs. By pairing that structure with EDB’s long-tenor loans, Masdar and EDF expect to green-light more than 150 MW of new capacity over the next three years, nearly doubling the UAE’s existing distributed-generation base.

“Finance is the last piece of the puzzle for many of our customers,” said Michel Abi Saab, General Manager of Emerge. “With EDB we can standardise terms, compress approval times, and pass those savings straight to end users.”

Analysts note the alignment of interests: the state-backed lender is mandated to support the UAE’s industrial competitiveness and net-zero-by-2050 goal, while Masdar and EDF bring a pipeline of vetted projects and proven engineering teams. The collaboration also dovetails with Abu Dhabi’s Green Falcon initiative, which targets one gigawatt of behind-the-meter solar by 2028.

Early beneficiaries include a logistics hub in Dubai South, several Ministry of Education schools, and a string of hypermarkets in Sharjah. Construction on the first tranche—totaling 38 MW—will start this quarter, with commissioning scheduled before next summer’s peak-demand season.

If the model scales as planned, it could provide a template for other GCC countries where rooftop solar potential remains largely untapped despite abundant sunshine and rising daytime consumption.