China's Envision to supply giga-scale wind farm in Egypt
Chinese wind turbine maker has been fostering closer ties with Saudi developer ACWA and its home government
China's Envision is in line to supply turbines for what will be one of Africa's largest wind farms, after Saudi developer ACWA Power tapped it for the 1.1GW project in Egypt.
ACWA Power is co-developing the project in the Gulf of Suez region with a consortium made up of French investor and asset manager Meridiam, Egypt’s Hassan Allam Utilities and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The EBRD issued an announcement today in which it said it is considering loaning $200m to support the project.
It also revealed that the project “has selected Envision turbines and is currently undertaking supply chain due diligence.”
Other documents published reveal that the developers are planning to use 8MW Envision turbines with a rotor diameter of 182 metres and a hub height of 110 metres.
The project, which is split into two sites, is proposed to have 138 wind turbines, evenly split between each plot.
EBRD said that the project is located on a globally important bird migration flyway that 13 migratory species pass through each year, which may present a “significant collision risk”. Planned mitigations for this include “radar-assisted turbine shut down.”
Once delivered, the project will likely be among Africa's largest wind farms. Currently, the largest operational site is a 310MW site in Kenya, although other larger developments are also in the pipeline.
ACWA Power and Envision have worked together before, with the Chinese OEM last year winning a 1GW contract to supply turbines for a project in Uzbekistan.