Egypt has received a $220 million loan from the World Bank to fund wind energy projects, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) said on Friday. "The loan includes a $150 million soft loan from the World Bank's Clean Technology Fund and $70 million from the bank," MENA quoted Electricity Minister Hassan Younes as saying. The most populous Arab country, trying to diversify its energy sources, aims to generate 12 per cent of its power from wind by 2020. The $220 million loan agreement, signed between the World Bank and the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company, will fund the transmission of electricity produced in wind farms in the Red Sea coast's Gabal El Zeit area to the national grid. "The power capacity from wind farms has reached 480 megawatts and is expected to reach 550 megawatts by mid-2010," MENA quoted Younes as saying. "Wind capacity is expected to reach 7,200 megawatts by 2020," he added. Egypt shortlisted 10 firms in November for a 250-megawatt wind project to be run on a build-own-operate (BOO) basis and expected to start up in 2014. It is likely to launch the second round of bidding for the project in mid-2011, a World Bank energy specialist told Reuters in March. The World Bank partly finances four energy projects in Egypt, including gas, electricity and renewable energy. Projects are worth a total of nearly $3 billion.
