Egypt’s newest wind offtake landed in Zafarana.
The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company has signed a power purchase agreement with Alcazar Energy for a 407 MW wind plant in the Zafarana region, Egypt Oil & Gas reported on 3 August. Mona Rezk, EETC’s chairwoman, signed for the state grid operator; Mohamed Zidan, Alcazar’s senior director in Egypt, signed for the sponsor. The plant targets 2028 operation and is projected to supply around 775,000 households. The report discloses no tariff, turbine supplier or financing structure.
Why it matters
Our read is that the binding constraint on new wind has moved from wind resource to grid access and offtaker credit. Rezk tied the agreement directly to upgrading Egypt’s unified national grid so it can carry expanding renewable capacity to load centres.
What it means for MENA
Egypt has pulled its target of 45% of generation capacity from renewables forward to 2030 from 2035 under the updated Integrated Sustainable Energy Strategy. In my view a jump that steep needs new territory and more output from ground the state already holds. Zafarana now carries a new project from a sponsor with a UAE-based advisory team that earlier this year signed a USD 420 million deal to operate, maintain and upgrade the 580 MW Gabal El-Zeit farm on the Red Sea. One fund is set to run part of Egypt’s older wind fleet and build part of its newer one at the same time. Watch whether that dual position starts shaping how Cairo prices its next round.
