Egypt’s ambitious renewables programme

The New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) has prequalified a list of 110 bidders for a solar and wind energy procurement programme on an unprecedented scale for Africa. The bids were for an allocation of 4,300MW – comprising 2,000MW large solar, 2,000MW wind and 300MW small solar – in what is being called the first regulatory period, which runs from 2015 to 2017. Of the bids, 69 were for large solar photovoltaic (PV) plants of 20-50MW, 28 were for large wind plants of similar size, and 13 for small-medium solar PV plants less than 20MW.