Egypt is poised to get a soft loan amounting to around £160 million from the World Bank to finance three renewable energy projects, the country’s electricity and energy minister said.
The projects include a 200-MW capacity wind power plant and a network to bring power onshore from wind farms in the Gulf of Suez, Hassan Younes said in remarks reported by news agency MENA.
Some of the money would subsidize the cost of wind power and cover the difference in price paid by the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company and investors in the projects, he added.
Egypt has been developing wind power along its Red Sea coast. It already has farms at Zafarana and Hurghada, while the authorities have said they will soon seek bids for a private wind farm. Egyptian company El Sewedy, in conjunction with Germany’s SIAG, has begun construction on wind towers along the coast and is also manufacturing supplies locally to enable easier access to material inputs for the exploitation of Egypt’s wind energy potential.
In addition to meeting the government goal of generating 20% of Egypt’s energy needs from renewable resources by 2020 includes a recent bid by 26 international companies, including El Sewedy, to build a 250-MW wind farm on Egypt’s east coast.
The country announced the tender for the wind farm on a build on a build-operate-own basis on May 9, and firms were invited to submit qualification documents by July 21 for short-listing.
The project developer would be required to design, finance, construct, own and operate the power plant for 20- 25 years, and would sell the power produced during that period to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company.