Sisi inaugurates the world’s largest wind farm, Siemens power plants

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Tuesday has inaugurated a number of new electricity mega projects in the country, including the Gabal El-Zeit wind farm that is considered the largest in the world.

Launched in 2015 in the Red Sea governorate, the Gabal El-Zeit wind farm has a total of 300 wind turbines with an overall capacity of 580 megawatts.

Egyptian president has also inaugurated, through a video conference, three power plants constructed by Germany’s Siemens in the country’s new capital, Beni Suef, and Burlus, to produce a total capacity of 14.4 gigawatts, boosting Egypt’s power generation by 50 percent.

Egypt signed an 8 billion-euro ($9.3 billion) deal with Siemens in June 2015 that calls for three combined-cycle power plants with a capacity of 4,800 megawatts each, plus 12 wind farms, and is designed to boost the country’s electricity generation by 50 percent.

Egypt is looking to expend electricity production after acute shortages in the years immediately following its 2011 uprising led to frequent summer blackouts and cuts to industrial production. It has set a goal of obtaining 20 percent of its power from renewable resources by 2022, and 42 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2025.