The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company signed a financing deal with German Deutsche Bank, the German subsidiary of UK-based HSBC, and German development bank KfW on 22 November.

The €4.1bn ($4.4bn) financing will cover 85 per cent of a €6bn contract to build three power plants in Egypt, with Germany’s Siemens, local Orascom Construction and El-Sewedy Electric, according to local news website Amwal al-Ghad.

The loan has a 15-year tenor with three years grace, it reported.

The international banks agreed to finance the deal thanks to the support of Paris-based export credit agency (ECA) Euler Hermes, MEED reported in July. The ECA guarantees would protect the banks from currency risk.

Euler Hermes declined to confirm if it was still involved in the project.

Other financing schemes in Egypt are delayed due to international banks’ lack of confidence in the availability of hard currency. So far, the government has not offered developers guarantees on currency for power sector developers.

The work involves the engineering, procurement and construction of three gas-fired power plants at Beni Suef, Burullus and New Capital, each with a capacity of 4.8GW.

The first 4.4GW will come online before the summer of 2017 and the full 14.4GW should be available 38 months from financial close.

Siemens also agreed to deliver up to 12 windfarms in the Gulf of Suez and West Nile areas as the second part of the $9bn deal, signed in June. The wind projects will consist of 600 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 2GW.

Egypt plans to invest around $70bn in its power sector to keep pace with rapidly increasing demand and eliminate power cuts in summer.

Other privately-financed projects include Dairut IPP, for which Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power is approaching banks, and nearly 5000MW of renewables projects on a feed-in tariff and and build-operate-transfer basis.