Egypt to start building nuclear plant in H2-2020 – official

Egypt hopes the construction of its first nuclear power plant would begin within the second half of 2020, said head of the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plants Authority on Wednesday.

The 4,800 megawatt (MW) capacity plant at Dabaa in the north of the country, to be built by Russia, aims to be up and running by mid-2026, Amgad Al-Wakil told Amwal Al Ghad on the side lines of the Big Industrial Week.

The plant will have four VVER-1200 reactors, making Egypt the only country in the region to have a Generation III+ reactor. It is expected not to just cover the country’s energy needs, but to produce excess which can be exported.

In December 2017, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin signed an agreement in Cairo that officially marked the launch of the power plant project.