The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) extended the decline for receiving bids for the development of a 200MW solar plant in west of the Nile. Bidders can submit their bids until mid 2017, reported Daily News Egypt.

EETC will review the bids and shortlist companies once the tender is re-launched in order to awarding the contract accordingly. Meanwhile, the company will complete assessing land for the facility. Its is noted that the project will  apply a build, own, operate (BOO) scheme, as EETC eyes buying energy produced from the power plant for 25 years.

Sources with EETC stated that the delay was caused by the lack of interest in the tender. They added that the original deadline was set to expire late December, however “no companies made their bids”, although forty one companies had purchased the tender specification brochure, including, Alfanar Construction, CSC Energy Corp, Global Enterprise, Biotherm Energy, Orascom, and Shanghai Electric.  A project manager at a solar power company stated that his firm will not bid in the tender because other Feed-in-Tariff  (FiT) projects have halted since 2014. He further cited lagged governmental procedures as another reason for abstaining from the project.