Egypt accepts UAE offer to establish solar energy farms worth $900m

The Egyptian government has approved an offer submitted by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, known as Masdar, to establish solar energy farms with worth over $900 million.

Saudi Arabia’s Asharq television channel quoted an Egyptian government official, who requested anonymity, on Sunday as saying that the offer approved by the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Energy includes the launch of the sites with a total production capacity of about 1,000 megawatts, and that these projects will be established in Upper Egypt, including the Aswan Governorate.

The source added that the projects will be established under the BOO model — build, operate and own — as Masdar will implement, finance and own the project. The state-run Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) will commit to purchasing the entire production over the life of the sites, which is predicted to be around 25 years.

The channel also quoted Infinity Power CEO Mohamed Mansour as saying that the launch of the giant project, which costs more than $10 billion, will begin on land by generating electricity in 2032.

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“The final contracts for the projects and the energy purchase price are being reviewed in preparation for signing the agreements by next October between the New and Renewable Energy Authority, which will allocate the land for the project based on the usufruct system in exchange for two per cent of the energy produced by the project, and the EETC, which will purchase the energy produced, and the UAE company as the other party,” explained Mansour.

According to the ongoing negotiations, Masdar will complete these projects and connect them to the national electricity grid before the end of 2025 and will implement them using the photovoltaic cells system. The projects involve generating electricity using solar panels. Masdar is expected to choose an Egyptian partner in the projects to carry out civil engineering groundworks during the project implementation period.

A few days ago, the Egyptian government signed another contract with Masdar to implement a 200-megawatt solar energy project in southern Egypt, as part of the latter’s plan to increase its production of new and renewable energy to 42 per cent of its total electrical capacity by 2035.

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