A 900 MW Egyptian wind plant is lining up European public money to take the first loss.
The EBRD disclosed on 14 August that it is considering senior debt of up to 192 million dollars for Shadwan Wind, a 900 MW plant at Ras Shukeir in the Red Sea Governorate. Scatec sponsors it through a dedicated project company, Shadwan Wind Power, which signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company in June 2025. Per the disclosure, the plant is expected to benefit from a first-loss risk guarantee under the EU’s EFSD+ Hi-Bar programme, meaning a public guarantor absorbs the earliest losses before senior lenders are touched.
Why it matters
The credit enhancement is the part worth reading. We read an EU first-loss guarantee on a gigawatt-scale onshore wind plant as a marker of which slice of the risk European public capital will stand behind, and which slice it still wants a commercial lender to carry.
What it means for MENA
When Shadwan’s debt is arranged, the final split between the EBRD ticket and the guarantee is the number I would want in hand before pricing an Egyptian wind bid in 2027.
