CAIRO - Egypt plans to launch a tender in May to choose companies to build the first phase of 1,000 megawatt wind power plants in the Gulf of Suez, its electricity minister said on Friday. The power plants will be constructed on a build-own-operate (BOO) basis, Electricity and Energy Minister Hassan Younes told state-owned news agency MENA. The tender process consists of two phases, each for 500 MW. The investor will build, finance and operate the plant for a period of between 20 and 25 years, while the Egyptian electricity firm will purchase the generated power and sell it to consumers at prices set by the cabinet, Younes said. The most populous Arab nation has installed capacity of about 23,500 MW but strained to meet demand during an unusually hot summer in 2010, leading to intermittent power cuts across the grid. It has said it aims for an additional 58,000 MW of capacity to the grid by 2027, roughly tripling existing capacity.
