By Mohamed Farag
The New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) will sign the agreement to offer lands with seven new and renewable energy companies next week.
The seven companies are among those qualified to establish solar power plants in accordance with the feed-in tariff system.
A source in the NREA said the seven companies will launch solar power plants in Minya with a capacity of 50 MW for each power plant and with a total capacity of 350 MW.
The NREA will sign the agreements of enabling the lands with Inara for Energy, Cobra Energia, IRI, Adenium Solar Egypt, Gulf New Energy, Smart Green Holding, and Bareeq.
It earlier put the seven companies on a waiting list to obtain the lands on the west Nile after completing distribution of all the lands allocated to establish the solar power plants in the area of Benban in Aswan.
The NREA finished preparing the lands in the area on an area of 4,200 km to establish a solar power plant and offer it to the investors on the waiting lists.
The source explained that after signing the agreements, the total lands that were offered by the NREA for investors would be enough to produce 2,500 MW in spite of the law that stipulates establishing plants with a capacity of only 2,000 MW.
The source said the seven companies will finish finding the needed fund for the plant and will have the priority in obtaining the lands through the usufruct system for 25 years.
The Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy determined a number of procedures to offer the lands for investors by presenting four documents, including a copy of the letter issued by the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company, NREA, and the guidebook of offering lands.
The documents needed to start the power plant include an initial feasibility study for the project and a letter of guarantee from a bank with a value worth 1% of the estimated investments of the project, which NREA estimated at $1.5m for each MW from photovoltaic solar units, and $1.3m for each MW from wind energy.
The source also explained that a joint committee was formed comprising the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company and the companies executing the renewable energy projects. The project’s commercial operation date was agreed on and if the parties breaches the agreement or does not meet the implementation date, it will pay a daily fine of EGP 4,000 for each MW.
The ministry will establish renewable energy plants in accordance with the feed-in tariff approved by the cabinet with a capacity of 4,300 MW. Investments estimated at about $7.5bn will be implemented by 136 companies and alliances qualified to carry out the projects.
