The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company and Saudi Arabia opened the financial and technical tender for the Egypt-Saudi Arabia electricity interconnection project. The two parties will take their decisions based on the offers received on 16 and 19 April, Enterprise reported. The applicants for the tender include Alstom, ABB, and Siemens.

According to the Egyptian Electricity Ministry, Egypt is planning to complete the project to link power grids with Saudi Arabia by 2019. The scheme will allow Egypt and the kingdom to exchange up to 3GW of electricity.

Egypt signed three agreements with the Saudi Ministry of Water and Electricity regarding the electricity interconnection project totaling $1.6b in December 2013, Utilities-Me informed. The project‘s purpose is to meet peak-time demand in Egypt. Additionally, the scheme will send Saudi Arabia electricity through the connection in the afternoons and the kingdom will send electricity to Egypt in the evenings, taking advantage of the difference in the countries’ peak use hours.