Egypt – Project Completion Report - Ain Sokhna 1300 MW Supercritical Thermal Power Plant Project - PCR

Egypt has made very good progress in terms of providing access to modern electricity services to almost the entire population through the national grid which covers all main populated areas of the country. Demand for electricity has been growing steadily at an average rate of 6% –7% per year during the last decade. The demand is primarily driven by population and economic growths, and increased urbanization.The dominant electricity consumer sectors are industry, public utilities and services, the commercial and residential sectors. Accordingly, electricity is one of the main sources of secondary energy in Egypt and access to reliable and affordable electricity services is critical to achieving the country’s economic and social development goals as articulated in the GoE 6th National Development Plan 2007-2012. This translated into the need for systematic expansion of the power infrastructure, by adding on average about 1500 MW of new generation capacity each year. Against this background, the Ain El-Sokhna Power Plant Project was conceived as part of the preparation of EEHC’s 2002 -2007 Power Generation Expansion Plan. The Plan aimed at adding about 7000 MW of new thermal generation capacity to the national grid between FY 2007/08 and 2013/14 to meet the expected growth in the demand during that period. By the time the preparations of the Ain El-Sokhna project started, power projects with a total capacity of 4,400 MW were already under construction as per the Expansion Plan.