A consortium led by Engie has recently launched a wind farm in the town of Ras Ghareb in the Gulf of Suez in Egypt. It was brought into service in October 2019.
It’s official. Ras Ghareb Wind Energy SAE starts operations in Egypt. It is an ad hoc company created to operate the recently inaugurated wind farm in the town of Ras Ghareb in the Gulf of Suez in Egypt.
The company that will manage the facility is 40% owned by Engie, 40% by Toyota Tsusho Corporation/Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation (40%) and 20% by Orascom Construction. The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the wind farm was carried out by Siemens Gamesa. The German company has installed turbines that are capable of supplying 262.5 MW. The civil and electrical engineering part of the project was carried out by Orascom Contruction. The electricity produced by the Ras Ghareb wind farm is sold to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
The implementation of this project required an investment of $380 million. The consortium financed it with loans from development partners. According to Engie, the consortium arranged non-recourse project financing with the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), in coordination with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Société Générale, under the cover of Japanese export and investment insurance (Nexi). Commercial International Bank (CIB) Egypt is the bank that provided credit facilities for working capital purposes and Attijariwafa Bank provided an equity bridge loan to Orascom Construction.
“We are proud to contribute to the “greening” of Egypt’s energy mix and we are ready to work more with our partners to meet the country’s renewable energy targets,” said Shankar Krishnamoorthy, Engie’s Deputy Managing Director. The Egyptian government’s goal is to produce 20% of its electricity from renewable sources. Wind power will make a major contribution to its policy, thanks to the potential of this North African country, which is concentrated in the locality of Ras Ghareb.
Jean Marie Takouleu
