3,636 megawatts added to service at a cost of LE47B: Electricity Min.

CAIRO - 27 December 2021: 3,636 megawatts were entered into operation in 8.5 months, at an investment cost of LE 47 billion according to the  Ministry of Electricity’s urgent plan, Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker stated Monday.

Shaker noted that the Ministry of Electricity is making a 100 percent effort to provide electrical energy in all its forms, in implementation of the directives of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, as it is a constructive national security issue.

He said that a set of measures had been taken, including implementing an urgent plan, completing some stations that were under construction, raising the efficiency of generating stations and contracting to implement three giant generating stations. 

Shaker indicated - during President Sisi's inauguration of a number of national and strategic projects in the electricity and renewable energy sector in the governorates of Upper Egypt, Monday that the West Assiut power plant with a capacity of 1000 megawatts was launched in December 2014, and the commercial operation took place in May 2015, in addition to the 500 MW West Damietta power plant, which was started in December 2014 and the commercial operation took place in August 2015.

He explained that the Hurghada generation plant with a capacity of 288 MW was put into operation in July 2015, the Sharm El-Sheikh generating plant with a capacity of 288 MW, which entered operation in 2015, and the Port Said power plant with a capacity of 84 MW in 2015 as well.

Shaker pointed out that the Ataka power plant has a capacity of 640 megawatts, which entered operation in 2015, in addition to 20 mobile power generation units with a capacity of 25 megawatts, and they were introduced in different places.

The minister noted that there were some stations that began work before 2014, and were not completed, explaining that the capacities that were completed by the end of 2015 are about 3650 megawatts.

He pointed out that the Benha power plant with a capacity of 750 megawatts had begun work in 2011, and commercial operation took place in 2014, and the Ain Sukhna power plant with a capacity of 1,300 megawatts had begun work in 2009 and entered service in 2015.  

Based on President Sisi's directives, electricity was considered a matter of national security, and the problem must be resolved as soon as possible, the minister stated, noting that the electricity problem that Egypt faced during 2014, when we had a deficit in supplying electric fuel, major breakthroughs in the transmission network, was resolved, according to the minister.

“We had a daily deficit ranging from 2000 megawatts to 300 megawatts,” he stated.

The minister presented a set of projects to secure the production of electric power, support the national grid for electricity transmission and electric feeding for development and agricultural reclamation projects, expand the electric power transmission networks for national projects, the control system, the Ministry of Electricity’s strategy for electrical interconnection with neighboring countries, renewable energy, the nuclear plant project, and the electricity generation project using pressure and storage technology to raise the efficiency of electrical power distribution.