• 288 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 288 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 290 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 690 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 695 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 697 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 700 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 700 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 701 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 703 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 703 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 707 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 707 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 708 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 710 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 711 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 714 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 715 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 715 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 717 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
Strong U.S. Dollar Weighs On Blue Chip Earnings

Strong U.S. Dollar Weighs On Blue Chip Earnings

Earnings season is well underway,…

Tesla Struggles To Compete In European Market

Tesla Struggles To Compete In European Market

Tesla continues to catch the…

Zombie Foreclosures On The Rise In The U.S.

Zombie Foreclosures On The Rise In The U.S.

During the quarter there were…

Oilprice.com

Oilprice.com

Writer, OilPrice.com

Information/Articles and Prices on a wide range of commodities: We have assembled a team of experienced writers to provide you with information on Crude Oil,…

Contact Author

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Sunny Egypt Interested in... Wind Power

Egypt currently has a total electricity capacity of about 23,500 megawatts, which the government hopes to increase to 58,000 megawatts by 2027.

A prime potential element in increasing this electrical output?

Renewables.

One might think, given Egypt's climate, solar?

Wrong again - wind power, which currently contributes less than 1 percent to Egypt's energy mix.

In 2003 Egypt had its wind potential assessed and published a wind atlas, which found that with wind speeds of 7-10 meters per second, almost the entire nation was ideal for wind power installations, with the country's best areas being along the Gulf of Suez coast. Two years later the atlas's coverage was expanded to mapping the country's wind potential in detail and determined that large desert regions both to the east and the west of the Nile River, as well as parts of Sinai, have average annual wind speeds of 7-8 meters per second.

Three years ago, the government of former President Hosni Mubarak approved a progressive and ambitious project by 2020 to produce 20 percent of its energy from renewables, with 12 percent being generated by wind power. Mubarak's cabinet approved incentives for wind power development, including exemption from customs duties and 20 to 25 year power purchase agreements with government guarantees, a policy that the country's new transitional government has endorsed.

According to the World Bank, if the policy comes to fruition, then Egypt will realize a 7,200 megawatt wind power capacity, cut vehicle emissions through improved public transportation, and make industry more energy efficient.

Jonathan Walters, transport and energy manager for the World Bank's Middle East and North Africa regions, said that "high and persistent" winds in the Gulf of Suez suggest Egypt has "excellent potential for wind power - among the best in the world."

The European Union's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which permits businesses and governments in industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in emission reduction projects in developing countries have already become involved in developing Egypt's nascent wind power industry.

CDM members Denmark, Spain and Germany collaborated on building Egypt's first wind farm, the 545 megawatt Zafarana wind facility, located 80 miles south of Suez on the Red Sea coast, which came online last year.

The Zafarana wind farm began construction in 2001. In 2010 120 megawatts of wind capacity were added to Zafarana in cooperation with the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), taking the facility's total installed capacity to 545 megawatts, allowing it last year to generate 1,147 gigawatt hours of electricity.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is also involved in securing financing for Egyptian wind power projects.

Egypt's Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Younis is now seeking international funding to help underwrite the country's largest proposed wind facility of 120 megawatts, for which Egypt's private sector will underwrite 63 percent of the project, accordingly to a press release from Cairo's Egypt State Information Service. If all goes well, Younis said that the 120 megawatt facility is scheduled to become operational in 2013.

Bigger plans are afoot - according to Younis, the Ministry of Electricity and Energy has now issued new competitive bidding tenders for underwriting a project of establishing a 1,000 megawatt wind farm, scheduled for completion in 2015-2016, along with three other wind facilities. Under the terms of the government tender, investors will finance, build and operate the power facilities for a period of 20 to 25 years, selling the power generated by their wind farms to the state-owned Egyptian Electric Company at prices approved by the government.

The largest bottleneck thus far to expanding Egypt's wind power facilities is securing funding, but Cairo scored some successes even before the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. In mid-2010, the World Bank agreed to lend Cairo $220 million to build infrastructure that would connect wind farms to the national grid and to support some of the other wind farm projects planned in the country.

The Egyptian government is seeking to build production facilities to manufacture selective wind turbine components for the increasing demand of local and regional markets, initially focusing on producing turbine towers and blade facilities for the local market to supply a projected 400 megawatts of facility needs per year and then to export products to the emerging North African and Middle Eastern markets. NREA estimates that the blade manufacturing project requires an estimated investment of $59 million and the tower industry $147 million.

Ancient Egyptians worshiped the sun god Ra. If all goes to plan, then Ra might have to share his primacy with Qebui, god of the north wind and Maahes, the god of war and weather.

 


Source: http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Wind-Power/Sunny-Egypt-Interested-in-Wind-Power.html

By. John C.K. Daly of http://oilprice.com

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment