The French company Engie and its partners have recently completed the construction of a wind farm in Ras Ghareb. With a capacity of 262.5 MW, it is the first wind farm built and delivered under a public-private partnership (PPP) in Egypt.
A wind farm is now operational in the town of Ras Ghareb, Red Sea Governorate, in the Gulf of Suez. It was built by Engie, the French energy giant. The company worked as part of a consortium composed of other stakeholders such as the Egyptian company Orascom Construction and the Japanese company Toyota Tsusho Corporation/ Eurus Energy Holdings Corporation. The wind farm will be operated by Ras Ghareb Wind Energy, an ad hoc company in which Engie has a 40% interest. The other consortium members acquired 40% and 20% respectively.
“Ras Ghareb Wind Energy is the first wind farm to be subject to a construction-ownership-operating contract (a public-private partnership, editor’s note). It is a perfect illustration of the Egyptian government’s continued commitment to increasing the share of renewable energy in energy policy with a target of 7 GW of wind energy production capacity by 2022,” says Engie.
The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the wind farm was carried out by Siemens Gamesa. The German company has installed turbines that are capable of supplying 262.5 MW. The civil and electrical engineering part of the project was carried out by Orascom Contruction. The electricity produced by the Ras Ghareb wind farm is sold to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
The implementation of this project required an investment of $380 million. The consortium financed it with loans from development partners. According to Engie, the consortium arranged non-recourse project financing with the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), in coordination with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Société Générale, under the cover of Japanese export and investment insurance (Nexi). Commercial International Bank (CIB) Egypt is the bank that provided the facilities for working capital purposes and Attijariwafa Bank provided an equity bridge loan to Orascom Construction.
“Ras Ghareb Wind Energy was developed with a constant concern for health and safety and is fully in line with Engie’s ambition to achieve a zero-carbon transition. We are committed to applying the same standards with the same success for the adjacent 500 MW wind farm developed by the same consortium,” explains Yoven Moorooven, Managing Director of Engie Africa.
Jean Marie Takouleu
