Under the auspices of the Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Hazem el-Beblawi, Egyptian Minister of Electricity Ahmed Emam and Saudi Minister of Transport, Water and Electricity Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman Al Husayen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will be signing on Thursday 3 new contracts on the joint electricity grids tie-up project. Egyptian Minister Ahmed Emam stated that his country will sign with Saudi Arabia the linkage, the commercial and the operational contracts of the power inter-connection project. The linkage contract stipulates that each party cover the cost of required construction on its territory. However, the responsibility of financing, operating and maintenance of the submarine cables needed to connect the electricity, which will cross the Gulf of Aqaba, would be shared equally between the two countries. For the commercial contract, it entails the methods of measuring the capacity of the electrical grid during peak periods to be up to 3,000MW at between the two countries. Egypt plans to send Saudi Arabia electricity through the connection in the afternoons and the kingdom will send electricity to Egypt in the evenings, taking advantage of the difference in the countries' peak usage hours. Furthermore, the operational contract addresses the responsibilities of each party in terms of planning and running the electricity grid interconnection project. Saudi Arabia and Egypt signed in June a $1.6 billion deal to connect their electricity grids, seeking to enhance domestic industry and offer indirect employment opportunities in both countries. The power lines linking the two countries will be 1,320 kilometres long, 480 kilometres of which will be in Egyptian territory and the rest of which will be in Saudi territory. In addition, a 20-kilometre submarine cable traversing the Gulf of Aqaba will link the two sides." The project consists of five packages where the first entails establishing two power stations in Badr City, as well as a switch station for linking the antenna line with the marine cable in the Egyptian Nabq City. The second package includes two generator power stations in East of Saudi's Medina and Tabuk, adding to it a switch station for the antenna lines and marine cable links in Saudi territory. The antenna line, with a length of 450 km starting from Badr City power stations to Nabq City's switch station, is the third package. The fourth package is an antenna line with a length of 850 km from switch station to East of Medina power station passing by the Tabuk station. The fifth package includes linking the two states switch stations using ground cables in Egyptian and Saudi lands and a marine cable of 500 kV through Al-Aqaba Gulf for a distance of nearly 16 km.
