Sunny Egypt Interested in Wind Power
Egypt currently has a total electricity capacity of about 23,500 megawatts, which the government hopes to increase to 58,000 megawatts by 2027.
A prime potential element in increasing this electrical output?
Renewables.
One might think, given Egypt’s climate, solar?
Wrong again – wind power, which currently contributes less than 1 percent to Egypt’s energy mix.
In 2003 Egypt had its wind potential assessed and published a wind atlas, which found that with wind speeds of 7-10 meters per second, almost the entire nation was ideal for wind power installations, with the country’s best areas being along the Gulf of Suez coast. Two years later the atlas’s coverage was expanded to mapping the country’s wind potential in detail and determined that large desert regions both to the east and the west of the Nile River, as well as parts of Sinai, have average annual wind speeds of 7-8 meters per second.
Three years ago, the government of former President Hosni Mubarak approved a progressive and ambitious project by 2020 to produce 20 percent of its energy from renewables, with 12 percent being generated by wind power. Mubarak’s cabinet approved incentives for wind power development, including exemption from customs duties and 20 to 25 year power purchase agreements with government guarantees, a policy that the country’s new transitional government has endorsed.
According to the World Bank, if the policy comes to fruition, then Egypt will realize a 7,200 megawatt wind power capacity, cut vehicle emissions through improved public transportation, and make industry more energy efficient.
Jonathan Walters, transport and energy manager for the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa regions, said that “high and persistent” winds in the Gulf of Suez suggest Egypt has “excellent potential for wind power – among the best in the world.”
The European Union’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which permits businesses and governments in industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in emission reduction projects in developing countries have already become involved in developing Egypt’s nascent wind power industry.
CDM members Denmark, Spain and Germany collaborated on building Egypt’s first wind farm, the 545 megawatt Zafarana wind facility, located 80 miles south of Suez on the Red Sea coast, which came online last year.
The Zafarana wind farm began construction in 2001. In 2010 120 megawatts of wind capacity were added to Zafarana in cooperation with the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), taking the facility’s total installed capacity to 545 megawatts, allowing it last year to generate 1,147 gigawatt hours of electricity.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is also involved in securing financing for Egyptian wind power projects.