The Egyptian Ministry of Finance is preparing to sign power purchase agreements with nine renewable energy companies in the first phase of the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) energy purchasing program before the end of November, reported Al Borsa. Sources with the Egyptian government stated that the ministry is still reviewing the FiT program documents that were signed by 9 companies and will finalize them accordingly. The investors are waiting for the Finance Ministry’s signature in order to submit the documents to funding banks to finalize the financial closure.

The reason behind the delay in signing is that the Ministry of Finance found several empty papers in the contracts. Thus, the contracts were resent to the Ministry of Electricity to edit and it was send again to the Ministry of Finance.

Nine companies are signing the contracts under the terms of Phase I of the FiT program including Infinity Solar, Alef Solar, IRC Solar, Irena, CTIP, and MAG Energy. The first phase specifies the buying price of power at EGP 0.144 per kWh and securing 85% of the projects’ fund in foreign currency along with arbitration in front of Egyptian tribunal in case of dispute.