Egypt to secure water scarcity through $2.5bn desalination plan

Egypt is seeking partners to invest in a $2.5 billion initiative to build more than a dozen renewable energy-powered desalination plants by 2025, as the country tries to tackle looming water scarcity, Bloomberg reported.

Officials plan 17 new plants that would run on solar and other green sources, with each built, owned and operated by Egypt’s sovereign wealth fund in partnership with a group of local and foreign investors, according to Egypt Sovereign fund CEO, Ayman Soliman.

The 17 plants, which are targeted to produce a combined 2.8 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day, are part of a broader plan to add 6.4 million cubic meters of daily capacity by 2050, Soliman said.

The project will benefit from Egypt’s competitive advantage in producing cheap renewable power and also allow access to green financing, potentially reducing costs, according to the CEO.

Some 8.6% of Egypt’s electricity comes from renewables, with a goal of raising that to 20 percent by 2022 and more than doubling that by 2035, Bloomberg said.

Egypt and Sudan have been embroiled in a bitter dispute with neighbouring Ethiopia regarding the latter’s controversial hydropower dam which both Sudan and Egypt fear will restrict water access.