The companies qualified for establishing a solar energy plant with a 200MW capacity west of the Nile will be launching a tender to choose a consultant for the studies of the project's location this month. Informed sources told Daily News that the 13 companies qualified to implement the project have agreed to share the costs needed for a consultant to conduct studies on the project's location. Each company will be receiving the studies and making use of them in the presentation of the technical and financial offers for discussion. The sources explained that the total cost for contracting with a consultant will be equally distributed on all companies. Representatives of Orascom, Lekela Power, Alcazar, and EDF will be handling the tasks of launching the bid and choosing the consultant. The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) has contracted with Indian Synergy to undertake the consultancy wok for the construction and implementation of the project. It is completely different from the tender which investors plan to launch in order to conduct the studies on the location. "A consultant will handle the technical requirements and review the technical and financial offers submitted in cooperation with the officials of the EETC. The consultant will also be handling the assessment in order to prepare a short list and choose the winning companies," the sources added. The list of competing companies over the west Nile plant includes Orascom, Infinity Solar, ACWA Power, Alcazar, Lekela Power, Tiba Solar, Masdar, First Solar, and CBB. The project is part of the ministry of electricity's plan that targets to involve the private sector in implementing 67% of the projects to add about 3,500MW, including 2,000mw from solar energy, and 1,500mw from wind energy, within the ministry's strategy to take renewable energy contributions to 20% of the total produced electricity produced by 2020. The EETC had decided to postpone receiving offers from companies more than once due to giving priority to sealing the contracts of the feed-in tariff projects first. Moreover, the EETC has put forward a strategy to contract for purchasing the energy produced from projects over the upcoming period, topped by the tender to build a solar power plant with a capacity of 200MW, and a wind energy plant with a capacity of 250MW in the west of the Nile.
