There are two ways for implementing power projects namely EPC and BOO, said Hassan Amin, ACWA Power Egypt Country Development Director.
In EPC projects, the Ministry of Electricity takes the responsibility of securing the necessary finance through loans while in the BOO it’s the developer who is in charge of securing the finance, the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the power plant.
Amin added that the risks related to the construction, financing and project implementation and operation and maintenance in the BOO scheme falls under the responsibility of the developers and not on the state, stating that in this scheme the credit rating of the state is not affected due to loans, therefore it is very important to go forward with these kind of projects especially that the international trend is to rely more and more on the BOO scheme.
Amin made these comments during his speech at the 3rd Cairo Investment Conference attended b Mohamed Shaker Minister of Electricity, Amin by correlating two success stories where in the first one the ministry of electricity in Egypt could successfully overcome the crisis of the electricity shortage that reached the peak in 2013 and succeeded to convert the situation from shortage to surplus in electricity through implementing fast track projects in record time/
In the second success story he mentioned ACWA Power who through 14 years only succeeded to position itself as one of the major player in the field of power generation and desalinated water as one of the most important developers in the region.
Amin mentioned that ACWA Power works with this scheme in all its projects in more than 11 countries including MENA, South and North Africa and Sound – East Asia, where the company investments exceeds 30 billion dollars beside 6.9 billion projects under development.
In his speech, he also mentioned Dairout project, where he valued the role of the Ministry of Electricity and the mutual cooperation in order to finalize the negotiations that is in its final stages, the only remaining issue is the fuel supply agreement that is carried out in co-ordination with the Ministry of Petroleum.
ACWA Power is considered as one of the most important multinational companies generating more than 22GW of power, and 5.2 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day to be delivered to state utilities and industrial majors on long term contracts.