Egypt signs PPAs for solar projects

The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) has announced it has commenced the signing of PPA contracts for solar projects.

EETC will sign the contracts with more than ten companies under the first phase of the feed-in tariff (FiT) programme, whose tariff for large-scale solar facilities is US$0.143 per kWh.

Among the companies to sign the PPA contracts are Scatec Solar, Wadi Degla, Infinity Solar, FAS Energy, Irena, Alfa, Mag and Dahma. These companies completed financing of the projects under the terms of the FiT, securing 85% of the financing from foreign banks.

Infinity Solar has already signed the PPA last week for a EGP150 million (US$16.9m) solar project. German lender LP will finance 85% of the project and the Arab African International Bank will finance the remaining 15%.

Nubian, ARC and Irena also signed PPAs last week. The first two will build two solar parks in Banban and Aswan and Irena will construct a solar farm with a capacity of 25 MW in the west Nile area.

According to sources, more than US$250 million will be allocated to solar projects with a total capacity of 125 MW.

In the second phase, the tariff decreases to US$0.084 per kW. In this phase, 70% of the financing should be secured from foreign banks. The companies which failed to finance the projects under the terms of the programme can participate in the second phase.