Egypt opens 500 MW Solar Plant

Egypt is perfect for solar power, even though the country has not implemented much of it yet. The Egyptians had installed 1.8 gigawatts of solar by the beginning of this year, most of it at the Benban Solar Park some 400 miles south of Cairo in the Aswan Governorate.

But the potential is vast. In mid-December, Egypt just inaugurated another big solar facility, with a nameplate capacity of 500 megawatts (0.5 gigawatts). The new installation was built in just 18 months, and is intended to deal with increasing electricity outages, what Americans call “brown-outs,” which are driven in part by increased use of air conditioning in the ever more torrid summers.

This problem is widespread — burning gas to produce energy causes rising temperatures, which people deal with by using more air conditioning, which burns more gas, and so on. Turkey faces the same problem, but has dealt with it much more aggressively, achieving nearly 19 gigawatts of solar to power the extra air conditioning.

In addition, Egypt Today reports that someone has finally figured out that the relatively educated and relatively inexpensive Egyptian labor force is well placed to manufacture solar panels in-country, which would much reduce their price — not only for Egypt but for other markets like Africa.

Sweden’s Sunshine Pro is partnering with Egyptian institutions to establish a solar panel manufacturing facility. Egypt has something like 33 million workers. About 28% work in industry, and 74% of adults are literate.