Egypt’s East Delta Electricity Production Company plans to build a 650MW dual-fuel thermal power plant at Suez.

Egypt has received $550m from the African Development Bank toward the cost of the new plant.

Tenders for the civil works and supply of the generator and associated equipment for the gas/oil-fired power plant are expected to be issued by the end of February.

The Suez project is part of Egypt’s power generation capacity building programme. The country’s insufficient power generation capacity has resulted in summer power cuts of increasing frequency and severity.

Egypt has 25,000MW of power-generation capacity in operation and peak demand is currently exceeding 23,500MW.

As the economy expands at a rate of 5-6 per cent and the population continues to swell at an even higher rate, the government will need to move quickly if it is to keep pace with demand.