ASWAN | Benban Solar Park | The World's Largest Solar Installation | 1,800MW | $2.8bn | U/C

Lahmeyer International started this year a photovoltaics project as owner’s engineer for Alcazar Energy, a Dubai-based independent developer of renewable energy facilities. The project includes the construction of four 50 MW photovoltaic plants within the Benban Solar Park project in Egypt. The Benban Solar Park near the southern city of Aswan pledges to transform Egypt into a major solar energy player in the world.



The finalised facilities will add 200 MW to the solar park in Egypt’s Western Desert, which has a planned total capacity of 1,650 MW thus representing the biggest solar installation worldwide. The construction of Alcazar’s four solar plants started last month, with expected completion in February 2019.

The project is financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – a sister organisation of the World Bank – and aims at providing Egypt, a fast-growing country of more than 90 million people, with the clean energy it needs to drive growth and fight poverty.



A sunny outlook on solar

According to its website, IFC spearheaded the financing package for the Benban project under its Nubian Suns program, marshalling support from a consortium that included nine international banks. The World Bank supported reforms to Egypt’s electricity sector and provided the country with a USD 3 billion loan. The Multilateral Investment and Guarantee Agency (MIGA), another institution of the World Bank Group, is providing USD 210 million worth of political risk insurance to private lenders and investors involved in the solar park.

In addition to jump-starting economic growth, the Benban project will help Egypt curb its carbon footprint. The entire complex is expected to avoid 2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, the equivalent of taking about 400,000 cars off the road.

“This project will help Egypt tap into its massive potential for solar energy and scale back its use of expensive—and polluting—fossil fuels. That’s especially important with the spectre of climate change looming,” says Mouayed Makhlouf, IFC Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

The investments flowing into Benban are also creating jobs. This is vital in southern Egypt, where unemployment is rampant. More than 10,000 people will work at the site during construction and once the park is fully operational it will employ 4,000 people.


https://energyindustryreview.com/renewables/worlds-biggest-solar-park/

Banks, including IFC, EBRD to begin disbursing Benban funding in August

International lenders, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will begin disbursing some of the USD 2 bn in foreign funding to the solar park of Benban in August, sources said. Companies who have received financing from these banks, will see an initial disbursement of some EUR 20-30 mn to finance construction of the solar plants, they added.

source : [url]https://enterprise.press/stories/2018/05/17/banks-including-ifc-ebrd-to-begin-disbursing-benban-funding-in-august/[/URL]

Egypt inaugurates first phase of 1.8 GW Benban solar park

https://energyegypt.net/2018/03/16/...t-phase-of-1-8-gw-benban-solar-park-in-aswan/


WOOOHOOOOO
1st phase is complete and its already MASSIVE

https://energyegypt.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/benban1.jpg?w=610

Bloomberg: Desert Sun to Power Upper Egypt with $2.8 bn Solar Park

Egypt inaugurated the first solar power plant at a remote desert complex where the government plans to generate as much as 1.8 gigawatts from the sun, cutting the most populous Arab nation’s reliance on dirty and expensive fossil fuels.

The plant, developed by Germany-based Ib Vogt GmbH and a local company called Infinity Solar S.A.E., began supplying the national grid in December, Ib Vogt Chief Executive Officer Anton Milner said Tuesday in an interview. The 64-megawatt facility is the first of 32 units that the government targets for construction at Benban Solar park in southeastern Aswan province. The project, with all the plants, is to be completed next year at a cost of $2.8 billion.

“In this plant, we have 200,000 solar panels and 780 sun trackers that allow the panels to move toward the solar position throughout the day,” Amine el-Edghiri, Ib Vogt’s project manager, said during a media tour of the facility 650 kilometers (400 miles) south of Cairo on the fringes of the Nubian Desert. The photovoltaic modules arrayed across 95 hectares (235 acres) can produce enough power to supply 20,000 households, el-Edghiri said.

Egypt currently produces more than 90 percent of its power from oil and natural gas, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Benban Solar park, along with other projects in planning, should help Egypt scale back its use of hydrocarbons as the country targets generating 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2022.

Energy Imports

Formerly a gas exporter, Egypt must now import liquefied natural gas, or LNG, at a high cost to meet its energy needs. New gas fields that have started production, including the giant offshore Zohr field operated by Eni SpA, should help the country close its supply gap, trim its import bills and maybe even resume exports. Solar and wind projects will help transform the country’s menu of energy options.

Renewables are “one the most crucial” sources, Egypt Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker said at the inauguration event. “We had a lot of power blackouts, and one of the reasons was that we had a big distortion in our energy mix and used to depend to a great extent on natural gas and fuel products,” he said.

‘Natural Progression’

Egypt’s first round of feed-in tariffs for solar power led to the installation of fewer than 200 megawatts of projects, out of several gigawatts of applications, due to commercial terms that many investors considered onerous. The government amended its terms in the second phase of the tariff program, including a change to allow international arbitration, to try to entice a greater number of foreign lenders and investors.

The second phase was more successful, with many projects securing financing. Improvements in technology making it cost-effective for investors to exploit the country’s abundant sunshine also made a difference.

Most countries are avoiding feed-in tariffs for competitive tenders that force developers to bid against each other for projects. Egypt issued its first competitive solar auction late last year to build a 600-megawatt plant in the West Nile region as it tries to drive down the cost of clean energy. The auction has attracted 18 applicants.

“It’s a natural progression,” Milner, Ib Vogt’s CEO, said at the solar park. “The auction-based schemes will basically be more competitive.” Milner’s company plans to build three more units at Benban and connect them all with the national grid as early as the fourth quarter, he said.

Other developers building plants at the solar park include Scatec Solar ASA of Norway, France-based EDF Energies Nouvelles SA and Total Eren, and Access Power MEA from Dubai and Saudi Arabia-based ACWA Power and Al Fanar Co.