SgurrEnergy, part of Wood Group’s clean energy business, supported Bayerische Landesbank and Arab African International Bank as lenders’ technical advisor on one of the world’s largest utility-scale grid-connected solar power complexes.
Located in Aswan, Egypt, the 64.1 MWp Infinity 50 Solar Park, which is part of Benban’s solar development complex, will comprise of almost 200,000 solar panels. It is expected to produce over 110,000 MWh per year – enough electricity to power almost 69,000 homes. Representing a landmark in the development of renewable energy infrastructure in the MENA region, the solar array will also prevent over 1,293,000 t of CO2 emissions in the course of its 25-year lifetime.
The Infinity 50 Solar project was recently approved by the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company, confirming financial close under the first round of the Egyptian Feed-in Tariff (FiT) programme.
As part of their scope of work, SgurrEnergy’s engineers and consultants undertook pre-construction technical due diligence including site assessment, technology review, technical design review, independent energy yield analysis, contract review, and environmental and social review. The renewable energy and grid integration consultancy has now been retained by the lenders for the construction monitoring phase of the project.
Anton Milner, managing director of ib vogt GmbH, said: “We are very pleased to have secured this project and to have been one of the very few consortia able to successfully qualify for the landmark Egyptian round one programme. This is the culmination of many months of preparatory work in what has been a very complex project. We would like to thank all of our partners for their efforts in assisting the consortium to secure the qualification for the project, the PPA and to achieve financial close.”
