Elsewedy Electric, jointly with Électricite De France’s EDF Renewables, developed, financed, built, owned, and operated two solar PV power plants (each of 65 MWp) in Benban, Aswan, under an energy feed-in-tariff program launched by the Egyptian government under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA).
Our two solar PV power plants commenced operations in August 2019.
Project Location:
The Egyptian government has allocated a 37.5 km2 plot of land located in North Aswan (“the Benban Site”) for the development of 1800 MW solar energy power plants. The land was divided into 39 separate but contiguous plots, which were made available to the project companies to implement individual projects.
Elsewedy Electric has started commercial operation of two solar photovoltaic projects that were developed within the second phase of the government-initiated feed-in tariff for solar and wind power.
Elsewedy Electric entered into an equal partnership with the EDF’s subsidiary, EDF Renewables, to develop, finance, build, own, and operate two projects in Benban, Aswan governorate, about 830 km south of Cairo, with a capacity of 130 MW, providing power to more than 140,000 households and preventing more than 120,000 tons of CO2-equivalent emissions annually.
The two projects have investments of about $140 million, with loans of $111 million financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the French Finance Corporation (Proparco) of the French Development Agency Group. Both financiers contributed equally to financing the two projects that supply clean energy to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) under a 25-year energy purchase contract.
The EETC buys the energy at 8.4 dollars per kW/h. The payment includes 30% calculated at the exchange rate when the tariff was issued and 70% at the exchange rate on the due date.
The Ministry of Electricity aims to produce 20% of the total electricity through new and renewable sources of energy by 2022, and the percentage will increase to 47% in 2037.