RIYADH- ACWA Power, which is partly owned by Saudi Arabia's PIF sovereign wealth fund, will look at issuing green bonds starting next year to finance some of its renewable energy projects, its chief executive said on Monday.

ACWA Power already has five projects certified for green finance, which together will require just under $10 billion in financing, ACWA's CEO Paddy Padmanathan told Reuters.

"From a bond perspective, you need to have operating assets in order to be able to then show revenues in order to do the bond. So, we will get there," he said on the sidelines of a finance conference in Riyadh.

"With this portfolio itself, there is a lot of opportunity for us to be looking at green bonds, and we definitely will be looking at it into 2022 and beyond."

Earlier this month, ACWA Power said it intended to raise up to $1.2 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) that is expected to be Saudi Arabia's largest since the market debut of oil giant Aramco, the world's biggest IPO.

Last month, ACWA and a consortium secured financing for Sudair Solar PV, a 1.5-gigawatt plant that is the first under the Public Investment Fund's (PIF) renewables programme.

The PIF-owned Water & Electricity Holding Company (Badeel) and Aramco, through a unit, joined ACWA in the consortium.

ACWA said the project, which is worth 3.4 billion riyals ($907 million), will be one of the largest single-contracted solar photovoltaic plants in the world and the biggest in Saudi Arabia.

($1 = 3.7506 riyals)

(Reporting by Raya Jalabi Writing by Yousef Saba Editing by Mark Potter) ((Yousef.Saba@thomsonreuters.com; +971562166204; https://twitter.com/YousefSaba))