Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi attended the inauguration of a number of national and strategic electricity projects in Upper Egypt on Monday.
One such project is the Benban Solar Park, which is designed to become the world’s biggest generator of clean energy.
Located in Aswan, the park is also considered one of the most important infrastructure ventures in Egypt to generate electricity from new and renewable energy.
It is being established in co-operation with the private sector and with the help of international experts.
The inauguration ceremony was also attended by Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli and a number of ministers and senior state officials.
A documentary, “Bright Suns”, was played at the beginning of the inauguration ceremony. It shed light on directives by President Sisi for the government to act to secure all forms of electric energy despite challenges.
Also highlighted were urgent plans that had been outlined to double power capacities in Egypt at a total cost of LE468 billion.
The documentary focused on electricity projects in the New Administrative Capital, Borlos and Beni Sweif, noting that those three sites are the biggest power generators worldwide with total production capacity reaching 14,400 megawatts and investments worth some six billion euros.
Upper Egyptian cities, as shown in the documentary, had the lion’s share of state electricity ventures, 48.2 per cent, that totaled some 135 billion pounds.
The government also worked with the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) to build the biggest wind farm in Africa and the Middle East, which cost about 4.2 billion pounds.
A hydroelectric power station was also established in the Upper Egyptian city of Assiut with a capacity of 32 megawatts.
The documentary also pointed to the Benban Solar Park in Aswan, which should generate 1,465 megawatts of electricity, the biggest capacity in the world. The production capacity of the park is designed to increase to 2,000 megawatts in a later stage.
This way Egypt will achieve self-sufficiency in electricity, also with a surplus of 15,000 megawatts.
