Germany’s Siemens has received the first turbines for the 4.8GW Beni Suef power plant in Egypt, which is part of the €8bn ($9bn) mega deal the company signed with the Egyptian government in June 2015.

The four Siemens H-Class turbines were unveiled at the site on 19 May to a gathering of Egyptian officials and local and international media.

Speaking at the event, Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Electricity & Renewable Energy Osama Ali Arsan said first power from the plant was scheduled to come online by the end of 2016.

“The first 2,400MW will come to grid by 31 December,” said Arsan. “The next 400MW will come online in 2017, with the remaining 2,000MW coming in 2018.”

Maximilian Egger, CEO of Siemens Egypt, told the gathering that 4,000 staff had been on site working on the project, and 1.6mn cubic metres of rock and ground had been excavated to prepare the site.

When fully commissioned, the 4.8GW Beni Suef plant will be the largest combined-cycle power plant in the world and will provide electricity for up to 15 million Egyptians. The local Elsewedy Electric is working with Siemens to build the power plant.

The deputy electricity minister said that the total cost of the plant was about €2bn. About 23 per cent of the financing is being provided by local banks in Egyptian banks, with a number of international banks providing the rest.

“There is a huge portion of financing which has come from other countries, such as Germany,” said Dietmar Siersdorfer, CEO of Siemens Middle East. “What we brought, which had not happened for a long time in Egypt, was ECA [Export Credit Agency] coverage. This made it viable for banks to go for the project, and really kick it off.”

As part of the 16.4GW deal Siemens signed with Egypt in 2015, the German firm is currently building two other 4.8GW plants. One will be located at Burullus and the other in the New Capital area of Egypt. The local Orascom Construction is the EPC contractor for the two plants.

The Egyptian plants are the first plants in the Middle East to use Siemens H-Class turbines, with each turbine having a capacity to produce 400MW of power.

Under the 16.4GW mega-deal, Siemens will also develop 2GW of wind power and build a rotor blade manufacturing facility.