The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) is considering the establishment of two water pumping and storage plants to produce electricity in North and West Luxor with a capacity of 4,000 MW and investments up to $5bn.
Sources in the EEHC told Daily News Egypt that they will contract with an international consulting office to conduct a feasibility study of the stations. These consulting offices include Lemaire Consulting, Artelia Group, Fichtner, and Black & Veatch.
They added that the potential power plants come within the Ministry of Electricity’s 2030 plan to diversify sources of electricity production, other than the Ataka project.
Mohamed Osama, head of the Hydro Power Plants Executive Authority (HPPEA), said, “the month of August will see signing a contract with Sinohydro to build a power plant in Ataka with a capacity of 2,400 megawatts and investments up to $2.6bn.”
The station will be one of Egypt’s mega national projects, the first of its kind in the Middle East, and the third in the world in terms of production capacity.
The government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Sinohydro, during the Egypt Economic Development Conference held in March 2015 in Sharm El-Sheikh.
The water pumping and storage technology, which will be applied at the Ataka power plant, is one of the best modern technologies for electricity storage, especially in terms of network operation costs, safety factors for solar and wind power storage, and stability of the electricity grid.
Osama added that the Artelia alliance took over the tasks of evaluating technical and financial feasibility studies of the project. It also cooperates with the Ministry of Electricity in negotiating with the Chinese Sinohydro over all technical, financial, and legal aspects of the new project, including the period of implementation, methods of payment, the price of kWh, and arbitration in case of conflict.
