Egypt to Announce List of Prequalified Bidders for 250-Megawatt Windfarm

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Bidding for the first private windfarm project in Egypt will move to the next stage in September of this year when Cairo will announce the list of prequalified bidders. The bidding invitation for the project was announced in May 2008 and was limited to private investors only. The terms for the bidding stated that the successful developer will design, finance, build, own and operate the windfarm for 20-25 years. Under the bidding terms, the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) (Nasr City, Egypt) will purchase power generated by the windfarm.

The project covers the construction of a new 250-megawatt (MW) windfarm on the Gulf of Suez between Zaafarna and Hurghada, about 110 kilometers south of Cairo, on the east coast. Bidders are invited to purchase requests for prequalification documents for about $425 from the EETC and submit them to the EETC by noon on July 21, 2009.

The EETC will hold a meeting with potential bidders on July 9 in order to clarify any uncertainties before the closing deadline. Following the deadline, the next stage of the process will be the shortlisting of the prequalified bidders in September. A wind-measurement exercise will also be conducted during this stage.

Bidders on the prequalification shortlist will then be invited to submit their proposals, following which the successful bidder will be announced. At this stage, some 55 companies have already purchased prequalification documents. The windfarm is scheduled to begin operations in 2013 or 2014.

Wind power continues to grow globally at an impressive rate. Installed capacity worldwide has more than doubled since 2005. At the end of 2008, the total global installed wind power capacity was 121,188 MW, according to the World Wind Energy Report 2008. Estimates from the same report suggest that wind energy could supply as much as 12% of the global electricity consumption by 2020. For related news item see article from June 26, 2009 - World Wind Energy Report Forecasts 25% Market Growth in 2009.

Egypt also has ambitious targets for renewable energy, including wind energy. Although the installed generating capacity at the end of 2008 was a low 390 MW, this is sufficient to place Egypt at the top of the list of wind power generating countries in the Middle East, Africa and South America regions. The Egyptian government plans to increase this to an impressive 7,200 MW by 2020, which represents 12% of the country's estimated consumption at the time.

Overall, Egypt plans to generate 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020. Apart from wind power, Egypt also has the Aswan High Dam hydroelectric power station, which produces a total of 2,100 MW of power from 12 hydroelectric generators. Egypt is also mulling over the feasibility of setting up nuclear power plants in order to avoid an energy crisis. Experts estimated that Egypt's oil and gas reserves will be depleted in another three decades.

In June of this year, the Egyptian government announced that it had allocated 126,000 hectares of land on the Red Sea coast specifically for the creation of new windfarms. That same month, the World Bank announced that it would grant $28 million to Egypt specifically for windfarm development, including the construction of a network to transmit electricity onshore from windfarms operating in the Gulf of Suez.

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