The Benban solar park, in the province of Aswan, will be the largest solar park in the world. As it aims to produce between 1.6 gigawatts and 2 gigawatts of solar power by mid-2019. The project will not receive any financial incentives, but will receive a 25-year contract to sell electricity to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), a state-owned company, according to the report.
At present, 29 solar power plants in the park have received funds of $ 1.8 billion, they account for nearly 1.5 GW of solar power.
The park is designed to host 32 solar power plants. All are scheduled to be operational by mid-2019.
“The centralization of the electricity grid infrastructure such as power lines and power substations allows for the sharing of costs of expensive hardware, making the cost of electricity drop lower“, the report said.
It pointed out that Egypt’s Greater Desert has the best solar radiation in the world, and even better than the Western Sahara, which runs along the length of the United States and Mexico. It also mentioned that, officials in Egypt believe that solar power plants can provide 20% of Egypt’s energy needs from renewable sources By 2022.
In the same vein, Khalid Nasreddine, an engineer in the solar power project, said that the Benban 2 plant is scheduled to be launched in mid-February and will be delivered to FAS Energy. Benban 3 and 4 will be completed in April.