Egypt Establishes Domestic Wind Turbine Manufacturing Facilities

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Egypt plans to generate 20% of its domestic demand for electricity from renewable energy by 2020 and is encouraging local manufacturers to invest in the manufacturing sector for equipment required for renewable power generation.

Local manufacturing for wind energy applications is not a completely new trend, as Egypt began constructing wind projects in 1986. Domestic manufacturing of wind power equipment began in 1990 with the manufacturing of wind turbine blades of different sizes for the first demonstration windfarm in Hurgada. This windfarm has a generating capacity of 5.8 megawatts (MW), generated through 40 turbines with different capacities. The windfarm is located in southern Egypt on the Red Sea coast.

In the past 10 years, Egypt has built the Zafarana windfarm, which has a generating capacity of 545 MW via 702 wind turbines. The locally manufactured components of the windfarm include transformers, cables and tubular steel towers of different heights. This equipment constitutes about 30% of the turbine components.

At the end of 2009, Egypt pursued its ambitious renewable energy plans through the private sector by floating a bid to develop 250 MW of renewable generating capacity on a build-operate-own (BOO) basis and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company to develop a 200-MW windfarm in Ras-Gareb, which is 150 kilometers south of the Zafarana windfarm, on the Red Sea coast. Both projects were developed through a plan to involve the private sector to develop windfarms with a total capacity of 3,200 MW in the country.

Based on these initiatives, the private sector developed a plan to produce components for domestic wind energy projects. Elswedy Wind Energy Generation, a joint venture of Egyptian cable company El Sewedy and German steel manufacturer SIAG Schaaf Industrie AG (Dernbach, Germany), established a new manufacturing facility in Ain Sukhna in December 2009. The new facility has been dubbed the SIAG Elsewedy Towers. The facility will manufacture the towers with two additional facilities that will provide turbines and plates to accommodate the increased demand for material inputs for windfarms in Egypt. The new facility should help decrease costs incurred from importing materials for the sector and is strategically located, with easy access to Europe, the Middle East and other countries in North Africa.

VENSYS Energy AG (Neunkirchen/Wellesweiler, Germany) is a German-based turbine manufacturer that has turbine-manufacturing facilities throughout the world. In January this year, VENSYS announced that it would sign an agreement with a major partner in Egypt to establish an Egyptian manufacturing base. The company is expected to install two turbines from its premier range at the Zafarana windfarm to monitor turbine performance to help develop a wind turbine suitable to local conditions. The partners plan to produce the first turbines in the next two years.

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