German industrial conglomerate Siemens will begin shipping the first two gas turbines to be installed by mid-May in Egypt's Beni Suef power plant, said the company in an e-mailed press release on Wednesday. The two turbines are the first of a total of eight to be installed in the plant through several phases as part of a plan to establish the world's largest combined cycle plant, supplying around 21.6 million people with electricity. "We expect the plant in Beni Suef to feed electricity into the Egyptian power grid as early as the winter of 2016/2017", Willi Meixner, CEO of the Siemens Power and Gas Division, was quoted as saying in the release. Last year, Siemens signed an €8 billion (approximately $9 billion) deal with the Egyptian government to establish three high-efficiency natural gas power plants and wind power installations at a capacity of 16.4 gigawatts. The power plants will be located in Burullus on the north coast, the planned administrative capital east of the country and Upper Egypt's Beni Suef. The plants should boost Egypt's power-generation capacity by 50 percent once fully operational. source: Ahram Online
