According to Arab News, Egypt will award contracts for the construction of 21 desalination facilities next year.
The CEO of Egypt’s sovereign fund said last week that the nation intends to build 21 desalination facilities as part of a $3 billion scheme that will use inexpensive renewable energy in order to increase the country’s water security.
In its first phase, the new desalination programme will produce 3.3 million cubic meters of water per day, and at a cost of $8 billion, it will eventually produce 8.8 million cubic meters per day.
The country currently has an annual water deficit of around seven billion cubic meters, and IPS predicts that by 2025, when 1.8 billion people globally are expected to experience absolute water scarcity, the country may run out of water.
Ayman Soliman disclosed at the Reuters NEXT conference that the nation hopes to jump-start sluggish investment in renewables by putting a number of potential green hydrogen projects into production in 2025–2026.
Soliman added that more than 200 developers from around 35 different countries had sent expressions of interest for the first phase of the project.
“This is not a competition. We are creating a pipeline or a blueprint for that process, aiming to start production in 2025-26 and all the developers are working backwards from there,” Soliman said.
The Sovereign Fund was created in 2018 to attract private investment in state-owned assets through partnerships and co-investments.
Soliman also revealed the signing of Memoranda of Understanding between the Egyptian government and several entities for the development of green hydrogen projects at the recently concluded COP27 event in Sharm-el-Sheikh.
Source: Egypt’s sovereign fund
