Historically and culturally, Egypt has deep connections to the Sun. Today, the nation will tie closer to the supreme object as over 5GW of solar power development agreements have been successfully signed.
The 5GW MOUs involve in several overseas companies. SkyPower Global and International Gulf Development (IGD) have signed a historical agreement with the Government of Egypt to develop 3GW of utility-scale solar PV projects over the next four years. The agreement represents Egypt’s strategic plan to develop a sustainable renewable energy industry that would create thousands of new jobs and attract billions of investment.
"The availability of energy and managing the demand for it is one of the main priorities on the Egyptian development agenda," said President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
The other 2GW of development plans was agreed between the Consortium comprises of Germany-based Terra Sola Ventures (Terra Sola) and Swiss-based Terra Nex Financial Engineering (Terra Nex), and the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC), a joint stock company owned by the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt. According to the MOU, the Consortium will invest approximately US$3.5 billion to develop and build an integrated project of up to 2GWp PV projects in various phasese on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) basis in Egypt. SolarServer, an online PV issue website, noticed that the MOU includes plans to build a PV module and an inverter factory.
Aside from these projects, Scater Solar from Norway plans to establish its first PV project in Egypt. Raymond Carlsen, Scater Solar’s CEO, said, “We plans to develop, construct, own and operate 150~200MW of solar PV power plants with an estimated US$ 300 million investment.”
In Egypt, power outages surges in the summer, causing the nation to face energy crisis in recent years. Egyptian authorities have owed the power crisis to a larger fuel crisis and have been taking measures to diversify sources of energy, pointed allAfrica.com. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a target to install up to 4.3GW of solar power plants and wind facilities during the next three years in this January. The 5GW MOUs is a further step moving toward his goal.
(Photo Credit: Commons Wikimedia)