Engie has reached financial closing on a 1.5-gigawatt solar park in Abu Dhabi, its ⁠largest globally, the French utility said on Monday, as it steps up projects in the fast-growing Middle East market amid ⁠a renewables ‌slowdown in the U.S. and Europe.

Set to begin commercial operations in 2028, the Khazna park will supply 160,000 homes across the United Arab Emirates under a 30-year power purchase agreement ⁠with Emirates Water and Electricity Company.

Financial closing typically means that all funding agreements are signed and the project can start spending the money.

Engie operates about 25 GW of gas-fired power plants in the Gulf along with cooling networks and desalination plants that produce 5 million cubic metres of water per day.

The company now ⁠hopes rising electricity demand and abundant land ​and sunshine in the region will help it move quickly towards its target of 95 GW of installed renewable capacity by 2030, up ‍from around 55 GW today.

"This is a key region that can play a big role for Engie's ambitions given the size of ​projects, so it will contribute an important amount of our renewables growth through 2035 because there's an enormous amount of demand," said Niko Cornelis, Engie's country manager for the Gulf Cooperation Council, on a media call on Monday.

The company is participating in multiple tenders, including in Saudi Arabia, where projects range from 0.5 to 2 GW, compared with European solar tenders that are much smaller, Cornelis said.

In the U.S., two of Engie's early-stage offshore wind projects have been frozen due to President Donald Trump's halt on the sector.

"The Gulf has its challenges, there is lots of competition because lots of companies are interested, and the power prices are very low, so we have developed an ⁠industrial cooperation with Chinese firms LONGi and PowerChina to engineer, supply ‌and build and ensure projects are profitable," Cornelis said.

Abu Dhabi requires its state-owned Masdar to hold a 60% stake in all projects, with other countries in the region maintaining similar partnership rules.

Equity in the Khazna scheme is ‌split 60/40 between ⁠Masdar and Engie, with financing from seven international banks including Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank.

(Reporting ⁠by America Hernandez and Sarah El Safty. Editing by Louise Heavens and Mark Potter)