Egypt allocates land for Engie-backed 3GW onshore wind project
Land allocations have been made for Egyptian wind projects totalling almost 30GW in the last few months
The Egyptian government has designated land for a 3GW onshore wind project that will be delivered by an international consortium featuring French multinational Engie.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly witnessed a signing ceremony on Wednesday for the agreement between the country’s New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) and the consortium.
The agreement designates 852 square kilometres of land west of Sohag, a city on the west bank of the Nile, for the wind project.
Khaled El Degwy, head of infrastructure investments at Orascom, wrote on LinkedIn that he was “proud to announce a new milestone” for the project. “This is another step towards sustainable energy in Egypt, and we are excited to be a part of it.”
The consortium signed a memorandum of understanding for the project with NREA and the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company last November at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. The consortium will build, own and operate the wind farm.
The same consortium has worked on two other Egyptian wind farm projects: the 263MW Ras Ghareb farm, which was brought online near the Gulf of Suez in 2019, and an ongoing 500MW development in the same region that is expected to be completed in 2025.
Egypt boasts regions described as offering excellent wind resources and is the target of some of the world’s most ambitious renewables and green hydrogen plans.
ACWA Power, a Saudi company that owns power generation and desalinated water production plants, also signed an MoU with the NREA to allocate land for a 10GW wind project in Egypt last month.
And the authority has also reportedly inked an agreement with an unnamed Norwegian company to allocate land for the construction of a 5GW wind farm.
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