CAIRO - Egypt plans to build a 100 MW solar power plant between 2012 and 2017, after its first solar plant starts this year, the Electricity Ministry said on Friday. Egypt aims to generate 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020. Solar projects have lagged behind wind, but the country's first solar plant at Koraymat, south of Cairo, is scheduled for completion this year. That first plant involves 120 megawatt (MW) of conventional generation using natural gas and 20 MW of solar power. The second solar power project at Kom Ombo, further south and near the Aswan High Dam hydro-electric plant, would only use photovoltaic power and would have 100 MW capacity, ministry undersecretary Aktham Abou el Ella told Reuters. The project would cost 4 billion Egyptian pounds and had financial backing from the World Bank and the African Development Fund, he said. The Kom Ombo project was part of a five-year plan running from 2012-2017, Abou el Ella said, elaborating on comments made by the minister and carried by the official MENA news agency. Egypt, an oil and gas producer, has been developing wind power along its eastern Red Sea coast. It already has wind farms at Zafarana and Hurghada in the area and has so far installed capacity of 430 MW of wind energy.
