China has signed conditional contracts with Chinese electrical engineering companies to invest in two coal power plants plus develop a transmission grid according the Egypt’s spokesman Mohammed El-Yammany reports Egypt’s national Ahram.
2 billion dollars will be used in the first phase which involves building three unites to produce 1,980 megawatts in total. Dongfang Electric Cooperation intends to begin with the three as it aims at building six units.
Another four units producing a capacity of 2,640 megawatts will be constructed by the Shanghai Electric Company. For the foreign components the company will incur the cost of 2.24 billion dollars and 396 million dollars on the domestic ones.
The Export and Import Bank of China (EXIM) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) will finance the Chinese agreements, which are conditioned upon technical studies.
Egypt approved using coal for power generation in 2014 despite controversy surrounding the impact on the environment, the decision was driven by the shortage of natural gas. Egypt has been suffering from energy problems since 2008.
