- A consortium of the Emirati’s Metito Holdings, Egypts Orascom Construction, Norway’s Scatec and the government of Egypt are set to build a solar-powered seawater desalination plant in Egypt.
- The consortium partners are currently in talks with the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Egypt (TFSE) for the construction of a new seawater desalination plant in the country.
- The capacity of the future plant will be between 1 and 2 million m3 of water per day which will be powered by a 400MW solar power plant.
Karim Madwar, Metito’s General Manager for Africa, says that the construction of the future seawater desalination plant and the future power station will require an overall investment of US$1.5 billion.
Egypt currently has only 60 billion m3, of which 55.5 billion m3 comes from the Nile and half a billion m3 from non-renewable groundwater spread over several parts of the desert. Egypt’s water from the Nile is under threat upstream by the construction of Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam. Read more
The project is expected to begin after negotiations with the Egyptian government have been completed.
In line with the project, Egypt is planning to launch a call for financing to local and international investors this first quarter of 2022. The country, through its sovereign wealth fund, aims to raise US$2.5 billion for the construction of a total of 17 new seawater desalination plants.The plants, which will run on solar energy, will be able to produce 2.8 million m3 of drinking water per day.
Egypt now has installed a desalination capacity of around 800,000 cubic meters a day and the government is targeting 6.4 million cubic meters by 2050.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
