Construction starts on Egypt 250MW wind project
Egypt’s Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker attended the ground-breaking of a 250MW wind power project in the Jabal al-Zeit area of Egypt on 20 February.
The build, own, operate (BOO) West Bakr wind project is being developed by Dutch developer Lekela. Lekela signed the power purchase agreement (PPA) for the project in February last year, and the scheme reached financial close in August.
Lekela signed the initial memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the project in November 2015. The West Bakr wind farm is scheduled to be operational before the end of 2021.
Financing for the project will be provided by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic), the US government’s development finance group, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
International financial organisations have a played a key role in Egypt’s renewable energy programme to date, with IFC and EBRD having provided financing for 30 projects with a total capacity of more than 1,400MW under the second round of the country’s ambitious feed-in-tariff (FIT) programme.
IFC provided financing of $500m for 16 projects, while EBRD secured $635m of funding for 13 projects.
Egypt has set a target for 42 per cent of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2035, the second largest target in the region after Morocco.
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