Egypt allocates land to boost wind farms

  1. Posted on Wednesday 17 June 2009 - 12:15
    Addou
    Image of Addou
    Merieme Addou, AfricaNews reporter in Rabat, Morocco
    Egypt is assigning 1,200 kilometres ((126,000 hectares of land) for new wind power projects which will be located along the country's eastern coast, where wind farms at the resort cities of Zafarana and Hurghada are already operating. Egypt's tender to build a 250 MW wind farm, near the Red Sea area.
    Egypt map
    The coastal zones in Egypt enjoy high wind Energy potential and the Red Sea coast in particularly is one of the highest windy areas of the world. The ideal location for wind farms is the Gulf of Suez as it has an average wind speed of eight to 10 metres per second.

    The country’s first large-scale wind farm is Zaafarana which was built in 2000- 2001. The wind farm is located near the Red Sea coast, with average wind speeds above 9 metres per second. The power generation potential has been estimated at around 3,000 MW alongside the pilot wind park at Hurghada.

    The North African country, which is a gas and oil producer, aims to source 20% of its power from renewables by 2020, with 12% coming from wind power, in addition to increasing wind capacity to 7,200 megawatts , Civilian nuclear power plants may also soon be set up to avoid an energy crisis.

    Egypt’s combined oil and gas reserves will reportedly last just about three decades more.

    To reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and the high air-pollution, the Egyptian government wants to use increasingly the available renewable energy sources, especially with regard to the outstanding wind energy potential.

    This would enable Egypt as well to export more fossil fuels or alternatively preserve them for future generations. About 85% of Egypt’s electricity is produced in power plants predominantly operated with natural gas, while the remaining 15% are produced through water and wind energy.

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