The Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy (MERE) and the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) had between 100 and 200 expressions of interest (EOIs) for their renewable energy programme.

Bidding closed on 26 November, and prequalified companies are scheduled to be announced by the end of the December.

Mohamed Salah Elsobki, Executive Chairman of the National Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), speaking at MEED’s Invest in Egypt 2014, was confident that both the developers and the clients had sufficient technical and commercial capabilities to carry out multiple projects.

The scheme is being tendered on a direct proposal basis, with generous feed-in tariffs which have attracted the interest of multinational companies.

The challenges ahead include allocating land, negotiating PPAs and securing financing.

Maged Farouk, senior manager for special projects, Masdar, said it was important that stringent rules are in place to ensure companies selected can deliver.

“There needs to be rules for prequalifying companies, there are a lot of companies (expressing interest), but not many which are able to do the job.”

Farouk said sufficient commercial and technical regulations for the prequalification and bidding processes must be adhered to ensure success with the programme.

The Ministry of Electricity intends to award 4,300MW of contracts by late 2016. This comprises 2,000MW of wind projects, 2,000MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects and 300MW of rooftop solar PV projects. This implies the award of at least 80 large contracts and 600 rooftop contracts.

Egypt has excellent potential for wind and solar, but only had 687MW of solar and wind capacity installed in 2012. It has completed only one renewable energy project since then, phase one of Gabal El Zeit Wind Farm, which has a capacity of 200MW. Several other NREA projects are still in the tendering process, including the 250MW Gulf of Suez Wind Farm and the 200MW Kom Ombo PV Plant.