ACWA Power and GE successful in Egyptian PV FiT programme

ACWA Power reports the signing of power purchase agreements with the government of Egypt for three PV power plants at the Benban site, Aswan, upper Egypt, under Round 2 of the country’s feed-in-tariff (FiT) programme.

ACWA Power will develop, finance, build, own and operate the three facilities, which have an aggregate capacity of 165.5 MWpandrepresentatotalinvestment value of about US$ 190 million. Its local partners will be Tawakol and Hassan Allam Holding.

The projects, with individual installed capacities of 67.5 MWp, 70 MWp and 28 MWp, are expected to achieve financial close and commence construction by Q4 2017.

The government of Egypt and the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy (MoERE) have set a target of 20% of power generation from renewables by 2022. The feed-in tariff programme envisages an initial tranche of about 2000 MW of solar capacity and 2000 MW of wind capacity.

The Benban PV projects represent ACWA Power’s first investment in Egypt, but the company is confident it “will have many more opportunities to partner with the Ministry of Electricity in its pursuit of energy security and other strategic goals.”

ACWA Power, registered and head- quartered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is owned by eight Saudi conglomerates, Sanabil Direct Investment Company (owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia), the Saudi Public Pensions Agency and the International Finance Corporation (a member of the World Bank Group).

GE turnkey contract. GE Power Conversion, which believes Egypt is on its way to “becoming a solar hotspot”, also reports success in the FiT programme. It has won a full turnkey contract from Fas Energy to build a 50 MWp PV facility for the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company, including both financing and equipment – GE’s first full turnkey contract to build a solar power plant.

Based on the agreement, GE will provide 4.4 MW solar skids featuring its LV5 1.5 kV solar inverters, marking the first introduction of the 1.5 kV technology into the Eyptian solar market.

GE will also procure the complete plant assets such as solar modules, trackers and cables, be responsible for the civil, mechanical and electrical works, and will also “provide a favourable payment scheme to help the customer kick off the project and enhance the plant’s bankability.”