Dr Ahmed Al Beltagy, head of energy sector, at the European Commission to Cairo, said the EU has approved allocating $304 million to finance the energy sector in Egypt. About $ 60 million had been allocated for restructuring Egypt's energy sector, said Al Beltagy, elucidating that the fund aims to restructure the sector's institutional structure and to resume the energy ventures and improve their quality. He added that the EU also provided $ 2 million to the German Aid Agency (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit- GIZ) to finance the main plan for the new and renewable energy ventures. Mr. Ahmed Al Beltagy has elaborated that the union also approved a $ 100 million grant to fund the new and renewable energy generation projects, like the plant of generating energy from the wind at 200 megawatt in Gabal Elzeit area, and another project in east Suez Gulf. Moreover, it includes a project of establishing a plant for generating electricity from the sun in Combo City, Aswan, by the system of CBS. On the same context, Al Beltagy has referred that the EU also allocated € 110 million ($ 142 million) to bolster three projects for the new and renewable energy in Egypt. The first project is about financing a plant for producing 100 megawatt of solar energy in Kom Ombo, Aswan, and the total costs reach € 700 million, while the EU will contribute with € 50 million only, in addition to the contribution of the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the KfW Bankengruppe, and the European Investment Bank. Meanwhile, the rest projects are represented in constructing a plant for producing 200 megawatt of the wind energy at € 30 million, in addition to allocating € 30 million in order to finance a plant for producing energy from wind in Gabal Elzeit area. On the other hand, Eng. Mahmoud Attia, Deputy Chairman of Egypt New & Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), said Egypt is about to construct a number of plants for generating the clean power from wind to produce 550 megawatt annually, moreover, constructing a number of the solar plants at $ 885 million costs.
