Egypt leading the way in African wind power

Egypt Wind Power

Egypt is leading the continent in regards to wind power generation and this looks set to remain the case after its renewables sector received two massive boosts.

First, production in the north African nation has been made easier after Egyptian-owned company El Sewedy established its wind division, SWEG, in partnership with German wind tower manufacturer SIAG. SWEG will produce wind towers in the North African country for domestic use and regional exports.

Secondly, the Japanese government has recently announced it is to provide up to 38.86 billion yen (US$430.5 million) in loans to help Egypt finance a project to build one of the world's largest wind farms, Japanese officials said Monday. The funding with help to build a 220MW wind farm in the Gulf of el-Zayt on the Red Sea by 2015.

Egypt is currently aiming to generate 20 percent of its power from wind and other renewable sources by the years 2020.

In regards to wind power, Egypt are attempting to boost wind capacity from 520MW to 7200MW over the next ten years, creating 75,000 jobs.

Expanding solar energy

Speaking of his company's recent decision to launch its wind energy division, CEO of El Sewedy Sadek El Sewedy said, "Egypt is becoming the first hub of wind energy in the region."

In even more good news for the nation's wind energy sector, a World Bank energy specialist said this week that Egypt is likely to launch the second round of bidding in mid-2011 to choose from 10 firms short-listed to build its first private wind farm. Also, Egypt should also speed up efforts to expand in solar energy, Hallouda said, saying it had huge potential due to the high amount of sun it gets and the available land.

Reuters reports that the country's first solar power plant will start production by the end of the year. The integrated solar thermal power plant, located south of Cairo at Koraymat, has a capacity of 140 megawatts, of which 20 megawatts comes from concentrated solar generation.

Hopefully this will help solar energy production catch up with the impressive number of wind farms popping up in north Africa.

Related Articles:

Spain invest in Kenya's wind power | Africa struggle to deal with climate anomalies | Nigeria gets first solar campaign

Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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