President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi is scheduled to inaugurate the world’s largest wind farm in the Gabal El Zayt area in the Red Sea. The farm has a capacity of 580 MW, with a total investment of EGP 12bn.
The wind farm project is divided into three compartments, with a total of 390 wind turbines. The first part includes 120 turbines with a capacity of 240 MW, the second compartment includes 110 turbines with a capacity of 220 MW, and the third includes 60 turbines with a capacity of 120 MW, still under construction.
The Gabal El Zayt substation is the main connection point between the Gabal El Zayt wind farm, one of the largest in the region, and the grid.
First commissioned in 2014 by GE Power, this will be the substation’s second extension,
Egypt plans to generate 42% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2025, according to Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker.
The country has officially awarded electricity generation licences to four wind farms with a combined capacity of 1,420 MW through the Egyptian electric utility and consumer protection regulatory agency (Egypt ERA).
These licences included a 250 MW wind farm in Ras Ghareb, near the western shore of the Gulf of Suez. As per the agreement, the farm will be connected to the national electricity grid experimentally by mid-2019.
The Ras Ghareb wind farm will be constructed under the supervision of the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company and a consortium including Orascom Construction, France’s ENGIE, and Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation.
Egypt ERA also approved the electricity generating licences of three other wind farms with a combined capacity of 1,170 MW, to be developed by Lekela, Italgen, and Marubeni.
