The Egyptian Ministry of Electricity has obtained a US$220 million loan from the World Bank to implement a project to transport electricity from wind farms in the Gabal el-Zeit region to the electric grid, Minister of Electricity Hassan Yunis announced in a statement yesterday. Yunis added said the loan agreement was signed by Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company to fund the installation of 280km of 550 kilovolt double-circuit transmission lines from the Samalut station in Minya Governorate to the Gabal el-Zeit region. The Samalut station will be expanded through the addition of a 220/500 kilowatt transformer, according to Yunis. Yunis noted that the loan package was comprised of a US$150 million soft loan with extremely favorable terms from the World Bank's Clean Technology Fund, in addition to a US$70 million loan from the World Bank itself. He said the loan will assist efforts to develop wind power stations in the Gabal el-Zeit region, which his ministry expects to produce more than 2500 megawatts. The minister emphasized Egypt's intent to diversity its sources of electricity generation. Egypt currently generates 480 megawatts of electricity from wind farms. This number is expected to rise to 550 megawatts by the middle of this year. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
