Egypt attracts bids for five renewables-powered desalination projects: Seven consortiums have bought the tender and conditions booklet for several planned renewables-powered desalination projects on Egypt’s North Coast from the Egyptian government, a government source told Enterprise Climate.

What we know: Interested developers — which include Saudi Arabia's Acwa Power, the UAE's Amea Power, Norway’s Scatec, Japan’s Toyota Tsushi, as well as local players Hassan Allam utilities, Madkour, Infinity Power, and Smart Engineering Solutions (SES) — are looking to snap up bids for up to four desalinations projects to be powered by solar energy projects yielding a combined 250 MW generation capacity in Egypt’s North Coast, with a total estimated price tag of USD 270 mn, our source said. Egypt’s Electricity and Renewable Energy Ministry began accepting tenders for the projects on Sunday, and will keep the process open till Friday, 27 October, Madkour and Amea Power told us, confirming a report by Al Mal.

Expected generation capacity and next steps: The projects will collectively have a desalination capacity of 300k cubic meters per day (cbm / d), according to our ministry source. The government will launch tenders for qualified companies for the desalination projects by December, according to the ministry. Local and international companies are currently preparing competitive levelized energy cost bid offers in preparation for submission to the government, according to Al Mal.

All under a BOO model: The renewables plants will be developed under a build-own-operate (BOO) framework, and Egypt’s government will offtake the clean energy produced from the concentrated solar power (CSP) farms under a 25-year power purchase agreement, according to Al Mal. The government is currently undertaking studies to determine competitive offtake purchase prices to lure in investors, and under plans to later issue green bonds, our source tells us. Egypt already has some 99 operational desalination plants in a country with a total capacity of 1.21 mn cbm / d, and has a target to increase its potable water conversion volume to 10 mn cbm / d by 2050, Al Mal notes.

REMEMBER- Egypt has more desalination projects in the offing: The Egyptian government has set a date for the sale of 21 desalination plants before the end of the country’s current fiscal year on 30 June 2024, four of which will be powered by renewables. Earlier this year, 17 regional and international consortiums prequalified for the tender process. Sovereign Fund of Egypt CEO Ayman Soliman said last year that the first phase of Egypt’s large-scale desalination expansion would cost about USD 3 bn, and that the total price tag of the project will be USD 8 bn. The sale comes under state plans to attract some USD 5 bn in direct private investments through the privatization of state-owned companies and assets.