Egypt’s New & Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) has extended the deadline for developers to submit bids for the contract to develop a 200MW photovoltaic (PV) solar project at Kom Ombo in Upper Egypt.

The client has set a new deadline of 27 November for bids for the independent power project (IPP). The bid deadline has now been extended several times, with the initial deadline having been set in June.

The Kom Ombo PV project had originally been planned as 10 separate 20MW PV projects, with NREA having prequalified groups in 2014. However, the project has now been changed to a single 200MW scheme.

Egypt has also previously drawn up plans for a 100MW concentrated solar power (CSP) project at Kom Ombo. The estimated $750m project, near Aswan, received strong initial funding support, with the World Bank agreeing to provide $170m, the African Development Bank (AfDB) $170m, the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) $100m and the EU’s National Indicative Programme (NIP) $32m.

However, the project encountered delays as a result of the overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak regime. A request for the expressions of interest (EoIs) for the consultancy contract on the scheme was issued in May 2013. However, in 2014, the project was put on hold while further studies were done on the specification of the plant.