Italy's Eni requested the Egyptian electric utility and consumer protection regulatory agency (Egypt ERA) to obtain a license to produce electricity from its 50 MW solar power plant. Sources in The Ministry of Electricity told Daily News Egypt that the Italian company is seeking to establish a 50 MW plant under the Independent Power Producers (IPP) scheme, which includes the establishment of the plant, and selling electricity directly to consumers, while it will pays electricity linkage fees. The sources added that Eni is negotiating over a construction of another 250 MW solar power plant on the build, own, operate (BOO) scheme to bring the company's total production capacity to 300 MW, with total investments of $300m, which is expected be implemented next year. The government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Italy's Eni to implement new and renewable power plants in Egypt. The Italian company began negotiations earlier this year with the Electricity Ministry to implement the new projects over several stages. The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) has been negotiating with the Italian company for a while, but the value of buying produced energy is still “thorny,” the sources said. The lowest price offered to the EETC to purchase electricity from solar power stations reached 2.57 cents per kWh in the 200 MW Kom Ombo tender. Eni wanted to sell its produced energy at 3.8 – 4 cents per kWh, which was very high. The sources said that the EETC will not green-light the contract under this price. Eni has been contacting companies operating in solar energy field for months to provide technical and financial presentations, however none has yet been selected. The Ministry of Electricity plans to sign several contracts with the private sector to achieve its strategy which aims to produce 20% of the country's energy from new and renewable sources by 2022. The ministry has developed various contracting schemes for the implementation of the projects, including tenders, IPP, feed-in tariff, and competitive bidding.
