- Egypt plans to install 17 solar-powered desalination plants by 2025.
- The country already has 76 seawater desalination plants.
- The government will launch a call for investors in Q1 2022.
The Egyptian Sovereign Wealth Fund (Egypt Fund) plans to sign new financial partnerships worth about $2.5 billion by 2025. This amount will develop 17 new seawater solar-powered desalination plants to supply drinking water to Egyptians. Increasing drought have led to more water scarcity in Egypt. In addition, the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd) is expected to reduce the flow of the Nile river (which provides 90 per cent of Egypt’s water) and worsen the water crisis.
The DG of the Egypt Fund, Ayman Soliman, states that the Fund will launch a call for investors in Q1 2022 for local and international investors. The 17 seawater desalination plants are expected to provide about 2.8 million m3 of potable water daily. In addition, solar energy will help reduce the plants’ operating costs as the process of desalination via reverse osmosis requires huge amounts of energy.
Egypt currently has about 76 seawater desalination plants providing 831,690 m3 per day. The government plans to install 67 mote plants in the governorates of Matrouh, Red Sea, North and South Sinai, Ismailiyah and Suez via public-private partnerships (PPPs) funded projects.