Construction and commissioning of Egypt's Ras Ghareb wind farm will be completed 45 days ahead of schedule, ENGIE Africa announced. All 125 wind turbines supplied by Siemens gamesa are installed and operational, and the wind farm is fully connected to the grid and ready for commercial operation. The project company Ras Ghareb Wind Energy SAE is jointly owned by ENGIE(40%) and its partners Toyota tsusho/pan-european Energy holdings (40%) and Orascom construction (20%).

Located near Ras Ghareb in the gulf of suez, the wind farm is an optimal location with a total capacity factor of about 60%. The energy is sold to the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company at the price of 20 years of PPA. The project also has a 15-year service agreement with Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. The total investment cost of the project is about $380 million

Ras Ghareb is the first wind farm to be tendered under the build-own-operate (BOO) model and is part of the Egyptian government's efforts to increase the share of renewable energy in the energy mix, with the goal of having 7GW of wind capacity by 2022.

Ewing mulluvin, chief executive of ENGIE Africa, commented: "Africa has huge potential for low-cost renewable energy. We are honored that the Egyptian authorities have chosen ENGIE group as part of their strategic energy plan." (From CNNPN)