The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) secured a $243m loan from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to finance the automated control centers of the electricity distribution companies in Alexandria, North Delta, and North Cairo, reported Daily News Egypt.
According to sources at the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, the loan has a payment period of 30 years with a 1 year grace period at an interest rate of 0.01%, informed ESI Africa.
Contracting was conducted with a Japanese international consultant in alliance with Electric Power Systems Engineering Company (EPS), in order to establish the technical specifications and standards of the Project.
A global tender will be launched next month to choose the implementing companies. There were two options to launch the tender, the first was to launch them to local companies only with a higher interest rate, or for international companies with a lower interest rate.
The job of the automated control centers is to monitor the medium voltage grid, make modifications and additions of date, monitor operation data, store them, give warning on the occurrence of an increase or decrease of voltage, and detect faults.