The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company signed a contract on Sunday with Italgen, a subsidiary of global cement producer Italcementi Group, to produce electricity from wind energy. The contract authorises Italgen, which has been studying the possibility of incorporating wind technology since 2008, to become the first private investor to enter the Egyptian National Grid, a wind energy park in the area of Gulf El-Zeit, according to a statement issued on Sunday. Electrical energy generated from the wind park will be transmitted to plants run by Suez Cement, another Italcementi subsidiary, and will help in the reduction of CO2 emissions. The first phase in the project will represent an investment of around €120-130m. It will equate an installed capacity of 120 MW, and is expected to cover around 40% of Suez Cement's power needs. After the completion of the second phase, electrical energy is estimated to reach a capacity of 400 MW. The signature of these contracts allows Italgen to proceed with a short list of bids, received from 10 international companies, to construct wind turbines along with defining the "financial package" for the investment. This initiative comes as part of the government's objective to produce 7,000 MW, 20% of the country's electricity, from renewable energy sources such as solar, water and wind energy by the year 2020. The contract signing was attended by Minister of Energy Ahmad Shaaban and Italian Ambassador Maurizio Massari.
