Martifer solar signs MOU for 25 MW Project in Egypt
Martifer Solar and their local partner, EEC Group, have been qualified by the Egyptian authorities to develop a 25 MW solar plant. The companies have signed a MoU with NREA (National Renewable Energy Authority) for availing a 60,26ha land plot in Minya to build the plant.
The Government of Egypt has adopted a feed-in tariff (FiT) program for both solar and wind energy to target 4.3 GW of new renewable capacity to be implemented by 2017. This program is expected to help the government to reach its ambitious target of generating 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
The 2 GW of utility-scale solar under this FiT program will be constructed among three different land plots made available by the government for the developers. Martifer Solar and EEC Group have been granted land in Minya, which is approximately 245 km south of Cairo and is expected to host around 450MW of solar PV plants.
Nuno Oliveira, Business Development Manager of Martifer Solar, said, "It is an honour for our consortium to have signed the MoU with NREA. We anticipate that, once connected, this project will help Egypt to combat its growing power deficit. It is both a challenging and exciting venture to expand the solar business in another new country within Africa, where we believe that our significant international expertise will be the key driver for success in the region."
Martifer Solar plans to implement the solar plant using single-axis trackers and expects the project to be ready-to-build and start construction in Q4 2016. All the electricity produced by this PV plant will be injected into the grid and sold through a PPA contract signed with EETC (Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company).
Dr. Mohamed Sobki, Chairman of NREA, said, "The 25 MW plant from RA SOLAR consortium will be one of a number of solar projects, totaling 2,000 MW, to be built under the first round of the Feed-in-Tariff program in Egypt. We are pleased to sign this MOU (land availing MOU for measurements) together with Martifer Solar and EEC Group and look forward to the project's successful completion and connection to the grid."
Henrique Rodrigues, CEO of Martifer Solar, said, "Egypt is a new geography for us in Africa and we are proud to see another successful milestone achievement from our development team, as we have been working on the continent since 2010. With around 620 million Africans living without access to electricity, we see great potential for our company and the solar energy industry to make a large impact in the future of the continent's development."
