Egypt to host solar energy materials plant

Egypt has said it will be the home to a factory producing raw materials and gas used to generate solar energy, with $460m of investments in total, Reuters has reported. The new plant is expected to produce 3,000 tonnes of polysilicon annually, a key material in most solar cells, and 1,500 tonnes of a gas also used in the manufacture of cells. Egypt has been developing wind power along its eastern Red Sea coast, where it has wind farms at Zafarana and Hurghada, and has so far installed capacity of 430 MW of wind energy.