Desert Sun to Power Upper Egypt With $2.8 Billion Solar Park
- German-built solar plant is first to feed into grid in Aswan
- Egypt targets producing 20% of power from renewables by 2022
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Egypt inaugurated the first solar power plant at a remote desert complex where the government plans to generate as much as 1.8 gigawatts from the sun, cutting the most populous Arab nation’s reliance on dirty and expensive fossil fuels.
The plant, developed by Germany-based Ib Vogt GmbH and a local company called Infinity Solar S.A.E., began supplying the national grid in December, Ib Vogt Chief Executive Officer Anton Milner said Tuesday in an interview. The 64-megawatt facility is the first of 32 units that the government targets for construction at Benban Solar park in southeastern Aswan province. The project, with all the plants, is to be completed next year at a cost of $2.8 billion.