Operational review
Operational highlights 2024
Safety
The Group recorded a total of 141.2 million man hours in our under construction and operating plants, twice the 72 million man hours logged in 2023, driven by the increased number of assets under construction in our portfolio. The Lost Time Injury Rate (LTIR) remained at 0.01 (2023: 0.01).
In 2024, the Company deeply regrets the occurrence of three fatal incidents. With heavy hearts, we honour and remember our colleagues who tragically lost their lives on‑site.
Safety remains a core value for the Company, and we are firmly committed to preventing all serious injuries and incidents. In response to these events, the Group’s Safety Executive Committee (SEC), headed by the CEO including other C‑suite executives, are reinforcing its commitment to Zero Significant Harm (ZSH), emphasising proactive management of high‑severity risks. The ZSH strategy goes beyond incident tracking to ensure that robust safety controls are in place and fully operational. The goal is to create an environment where critical risks are identified, carefully managed, and mitigated before they can result in harm.
During 2024, the SEC also focused on integrating digital tools to enhance AI‑driven insights for HSSE decision‑making. This digital transformation supports predictive risk management and proactive safety measures.
More information on safety in the Society section.
Operational performance
During 2024, 4 GW of power and 76,000 m3/day of desalinated water as incremental operational capacity were added to our portfolio, thus bringing the total operational capacity in our portfolio to 34 GW of power and 5.6 million m3/day of water. This includes both fully operational assets and under‑construction assets that have reached partial commercial operations.
In 2024, our consolidated power availability improved by 140 basis points, reaching 93.3%, up from 91.9% in 2023. However, the renewable power segment saw a decline in availability, dropping by 210 basis points to 95.6%, compared to 97.7% in 2023. This decrease was mainly due to the prolonged forced outage at Noor III CSP IPP in Morocco.
Our water portfolio continued to deliver strong performance, with consolidated water availability increasing by 120 basis points to 97.6% in 2024, compared to 96.4% in 2023.
In 2024, we observed a significant improvement in the operational performance of our power portfolio, especially when compared to the challenges encountered in 2022/23 due to forced outages (FO) at some of our plants. This enhancement was primarily driven by the successful implementation of the Reliability of Supply (RoS) programme, which was launched in late 2022. As a result, we saw a substantial reduction in both forced and planned plant outages, bringing our performance much closer to industry standard acceptable levels.
There are further details on our RoS programme in the Environment section.
Sustainability
In 2024, ACWA Power continued to significantly expand its commitment to renewable energy, reflecting our strategic focus on sustainability and environmental stewardship by being a leading company in building and operating large‑scale renewable assets. Our operational renewable capacity surged to 6.3 GW, up from 2.0 GW in 2023, while our projects under construction and in advanced development grew our total portfolio gross renewable capacity to 34.9 GW, representing 50.4% of our total power capacity (YE2023: 44.5%). Achieving this milestone is a significant accomplishment, as we have met our target of a 50/50 portfolio mix between renewables and flexible generation six years ahead of schedule.
As generation increases from renewable resources, our portfolio’s specific emissions intensity (CO2 eg/kWh) reduces. We aim to have USD 250 billion assets under management by 2030, with more than 75% of the power additions to be from renewables.
Additionally, the integration of captive photovoltaic (PV) solutions within our water desalination plants has led to significant reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability, we plan to increase the use of renewable energy as the primary source in our water desalination business. It is also worth noting that almost 100% of our water withdrawal source and water discharge destination in our portfolio is seawater.
A more detailed disclosure on sustainability is included in the Sustainability approach section.