Daily News Egypt toured the Greater Cairo Utility Data Centre to observe the solar power plant at the top of the building with a capacity of 60 KW, which has the highest efficiency among 1,000 solar power plants on government buildings. Wafaa Abdel Ghaffar, director of the Energy Rationalisation Unit at the centre, said that the plant achieved a higher-than-expected production of 14.7 MW, where the project estimated production at 91.9 MW/hour per year, while the actual production reached 106.7 MW/h per year. She explained that the plant's production is equivalent to growing 12,200 trees, saving carbon dioxide emissions by 129.53 tonnes, and achieved savings in the consumption of electricity's bill per month worth EGP 10,000. The Ministers Council announced in 2013 a plan to illuminate 1,000 government buildings with solar energy due to the frequent cuts in electricity and to rationalise energy's consumption, The station was established in May 2016 by the Arab Energy Company of the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation, after the approval of Cairo's governor to establish the station at the Greater Cairo Utility Data Centre in October 2015. Abdel Ghaffar said that the plant has achieved a 274.8 MW saving in consumption since its construction, equivalent to a financial value of EGP 223,700, with the total cost of construction of the station amounting to EGP 743,000 funded from the state's budget. The main reason for the high efficiency of the plant is due to the continuous follow-up and attention to the maintenance work, which takes place on weekly basis by cleaning the solar cells from the dust, as well as monitoring the actual production through a data system. Amal Hanafy, head of the centre, said that continuous monitoring and efforts exerted by the Energy Rationalisation Unit at the centre is a major reason for achieving the highest efficiency of the solar plants. She explained that the centre was established in 1988 with a Finnish grant to face the suffering experienced by the planners and implementers of the first phase of Cairo's metro, such as the lack of basic geographical maps of Cairo.
