CAIRO: The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank approved a grant to Egypt, a loan of $1.2 billion Egyptian pounds to support the development of wind energy. 800 million pounds will be provided by the Clean Technology Fund, which will be a first for the fund in the Middle East and North Africa. The project will support the strategy of Egypt towards renewable energy, which is attaching a high priority program to generate electricity on a wide range of renewable energy sources, “which help to achieve national objectives and regional savings in fossil fuels, environmental protection, creation of job opportunities that takes into account environmental considerations and technology transfer,” the ministry of environment told Bikya Masr on Sunday. “According to the loan, we will be able to keep pushing forward on the goal of getting wind power functioning for at least 20 percent of our energy needs by the end of the decade,” an official from the Egyptian Environment Action Agency (EEAA). Egypt is among those countries with the best sources of wind power in the world, particularly in the Gulf of Suez, the World Bank said, “where the possibility exists to generate at least 7200 MW by the year 2022, as well as 3000 MW, on the Eastern and Western banks of the Nile.” The ministry said, within the framework of its strategy to develop renewable energy sources on a large scale, it is “working to produce 20 percent of the installed capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources by 2020.” BM
