Egyptera, the Egyptian Electric Utility and Consumer Protection Regulatory Agency, has published lists of companies which have prequalified for the country’s feed-in tariff renewable energy scheme.

The client for the programme is the Electricity & Renewable Energy Ministry.

A total of 68 of the prequalified companies proposed solar photovoltaic (PV) projects between 20MW and 50MW, 13 proposed solar PV projects between 500kW and 20MW, and 28 for wind projects between 20MW and 50MW, making a total of 109 proposals.

Prequalification for solar rooftop projects below 500kW is through regional electricity companies, and results have not been published.

The ministry plans to award 2300MW of solar and 2000MW of wind projects by the end of 2016.

The prompt completion of the prequalification stage will dispel doubts about the ministry’s capacity to manage multiple projects in a short timescale. It established a feed-in tariff in September 2014 and has prepared power purchase agreements (PPAs), giving developers confidence in the programme.

This prompted up to 200 developers to submit pre-qualification documents in November.

Large multinationals, including France’s GDF Suez, Spain’s Acciona and Saudi Acwa submitted documents for both large solar and wind projects.

Contractors will apply for land allocations in January, and begin the process of negotiating contracts.

Competitive bidding for projects 250MW Gulf of Suez Wind Farm and the 200MW Kom Ombo PV plant has made slow progress.