CAIRO: The Egyptian government said it will invite tenders for the Egypt-Saudi Arabia power grid in mid-April. The Minister of Electricity and Energy, Hassan Younis, said Egypt will send energy to Saudi Arabia through the power link in the afternoons, while Saudi would send Egypt electricity in the evenings, attributing the distribution to differences in peak use hours in the two countries. The Project aims at exchanging 3,000 megawatts of electricity through direct current electrical grids. Saudi Electricity Co. and Egyptian Electricity Holding Co. will each finance, own, operate and maintain that part of the grid in their respective countries while dividing equally the cost of the underwater segment, Younis said Monday in a statement on the ministry's website. Younis said he has received a report on the project's progress, and work is scheduled to start in January 2012. He said test operations will be conducted in early 2015. The project's cost is estimated at more than U.S. $1 billion. BM
