Egypt’s ministry of electricity has requested the National Centre for Planning State Lands Usage (NCPSLU) to allocate 168,000 sqm land plot in Attaqa, Suez governorate, to implement a pumped-storage electricity plant.
Sources told Daily News Egypt that the targeted land was cleared of mines, and required approvals were obtained from the concerned authorities to implement the project, and that all the permits for the workers and equipment were issued. Sinohydro, which is implementing the project, aims to obtain an additional piece of land for the station.
The sources pointed out that the project is very large and needs more than the allocated area of 20 feddan. The technical aspects of the project were reviewed in cooperation with Artelia, which is responsible for the consulting work of the project.
Furthermore, the sources said that the Exim Bank of China will finance the project, and the agreement on the interest rate. the repayment period of the loan, and the grace period are being negotiated and will be decided in the coming month.
Sinohydro is executing a water pumping and storage plant in Attaqa with the EPC + Finance scheme. The Chinese company provides financing from banking entities and submits it to the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) and executes the project. The ministry of electricity and the EEHC repay for the project after its implementation.
The project is the largest of its kind in the Middle East to generate electricity from water plants using pumping and storage technology, and ranks fifth in the world. Pumping and storage stations are the most efficient means of storing energy.
The water pumping and storage technology in the Attaqa project will be one of the best technologies for storing electricity in the world. It will have many advantages, especially in terms of the operation cost of networks and storage factors for solar and wind energy, as well as grid safety and security.
The sources said that the projects contribute to the consolidation of the unified electricity network and are used to store electricity produced from renewable sources of energy and improve the reliability of these sources in the supply of electric power, using triple waste water cleaning technology to spin the turbine.
