Global Agencies to Reinforce Wind Projects in Egypt

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Egypt worked with Riso Laboratory in Denmark to develop a wind atlas, published in 1996, for the Gulf of Suez west coast. In 2003, a more detailed wind atlas for the same area was issued, concluding that the region can host several large-scale windfarms. The atlas was expanded to cover the entire country in 2005, to establish the meteorological basis for the assessment of wind energy resources in Egypt. The atlas indicates that large regions of the eastern and western deserts of the Nile River and parts of Sinai have average annual wind speeds of 7 to 8 meters per second.

In February 2008, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Energy approved an ambitious plan to produce 20% of total electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, including 12% from wind energy. This translates into more than 7,200 megawatts (MW) of grid-connected windfarms. The plan allows for private investors to play a major role.

In May 2009, the Egyptian government floated an international tender for a windfarm at the Gulf of El Zayt. In cooperation with the World Bank, it invited private international and local developers to submit their prequalification documents for the first competitive bid to build a 250-MW windfarm.

According to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), several incentives for renewable power projects will be available, including:

• Private-sector firms will build, own and operate (BOO) projects and sell electricity to the transmission company, under a long-term power purchasing agreement of 20 to 25 years.
• EETC will set up a plan, lasting up to 2015, to connect all windfarms executed by both NREA and BOO projects through competitive bidding.
• The 2007 Custom Tariff Law of Egypt will provide incentives to renewable energy projects by reducing customs tariff on imported equipment from 5% to 2%.

To evacuate this huge amount of power, EETC will implement two substations, with 500/220-kilovolt (kV) levels, near the Gulf of Suez, with installed capacity of 500 megavolt-apmere for each. These two substations will be connected to the unified power system through a 500-kV, doubled-circuit, overhead transmission line (OHTL) that is about 280 kilometers long. Commitment from international financing agencies has been obtained.

In May 2010, Egyptian Minister of Electricity Hassan Yunis announced that Egypt obtained a US$220 million loan from the World Bank to implement a project to transport electricity from windfarms in the Gabal el-Zeit region to the national grid. Yunis added that the loan agreement was signed by Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company to fund the installation of 280 kilometers of 550-kV, double-circuit transmission lines from the Samalut station in Minya Governorate to the Gabal el-Zeit region.

From his side, Mohab Hallouda, the senior energy specialist at the World Bank, which is acting as consultant for the tender process, said the World Bank partly finances four energy projects in Egypt, including gas, electricity and renewable energy. Projects are worth a total of nearly $3 billion.

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