The Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) is to finance the construction of a 20MW photovoltaic (PV) solar plant in Hurghada, located on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

Jica has signed an agreement with Egypt’s New & Renewable Energy Authority (Nrea) to provide a loan of about $106m to cover the construction of the solar plant, the first to be built in Hurghada.

Nrea is planning to invite contractors to submit proposals through a public tender for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract in the coming weeks, and is planning to appoint a contractor in September.

The project is part of Egypt’s ambitious plans for renewable energy to contribute 20 per cent of total energy produced by 2022. In late 2017, Cairo revealed it had set a target for 37 per cent of energy to come from clean energy by 2035.

Speaking at the Middle East Electricity Conference in Dubai in March, Ehab Farouk Abd el-Aziz, manager of planning, Nrea, said that 900MW of renewable energy capacity had been installed in the country, with 400MW under construction and 4,000MW under development.