Egypt’s strategic plan to speed up the process of executing the Siemens deal by constructing three almost identical power plants in Beni Suef, New Capital, and Burullus is successfully delivering the intended results, The National reported.

In line with the strategy, the Egyptian Ministries of Electricity and Petroleum have agreed to secure 18mcm/d of gas in order for the three power plants to produce 4,400 MW by December, wrote Daily News Egypt.

The units will first generate electricity and then feed it to the national grid in the first week of September, said Chairperson of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC), Gaber Dessouky.
He added that the power plants will undergo a pilot phase in September and October using 15mcm/d of gas.

Meanwhile, the first two gigantic gas turbines – out of a total number of 24 needed for constructing the world’s biggest power plant in Egypt – were successfully installed in their bases in Beni Suef, less than a year after the country had signed the deal.

Each of the two turbines is 12.6 meters long, 5.5 meters wide, and weighs 445 tons. Each gas turbine at the combined-cycle of each power plant in Beni Suef is expected to produce 400 MW of power and each plant is expected to generate 4.8 GW of power.

The $6.8b three power plants will be able to jointly generate 14.4 GW. The plants are scheduled to come on stream by 2019, expected to boost the entire country’s generating capacity by 50%.

In related news, The National cited CEO of Siemens Middle East, Dietmar Siersdorfer, as saying that the Egyptian government had negotiated an exceptionally low price for the three power plants, which was the biggest order in Siemens’ history. He explained that all of the company’s past projects were contracted at between $700 and $900 per kW, but in Egypt’s deal, they were contracted at less than $500 per kW.