The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) has launched a 200 MW solar PV tender (on August 30). The tender represents a significant part of the country’s refreshed commitment towards increasing its share of renewable energy, an effort being spearheaded by the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA).
The new tender outlines that solar PV projects in the West Nile region will be awarded to bidders who hold proven experience in developing at minimum three solar plants of 50 MW capacity each. Applications must also be submitted with bid bond of around $4.5 million.
The tender is expected to attract considerable interest, in part due to its benefitting from Egypt’s liberal feed-in tariff (FIT), announced in September 2014. The FIT is seen as a cornerstone to Egypt’s renewable energy framework, and has fostered great investment in Egyptian renewable developments, especially solar power.
The solar endeavour fits into Egypt’s broader push for increasing renewable energy capacity as evidenced in May by the signing of seven memoranda of understanding in Cairo, collectively calling for 220 MW of new solar capacity and 100 MW of new wind power.
The agreements were valued at $500 million and are a sure sign of Egypt’s drive for a renewable future.
Egyptian energy authorities aim to see 4.3 GW of new solar and wind power capacity installed by 2017. The capacity will be split between 2.3 GW of solar (2 GW in large-scale and 300 MW in small-scale, or <500 kW, installations) and 2 GW of wind power.
Image by Christopher Michel (some rights reserved)
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