Abu dhabi Future Energy Company or Masdar is taking the necessary procedures to establish two Emirati companies to be partners with the Egyptian New and Renewable Energy Authority or NREA to start an electricity-generating project via windmills which should start functioning in 2018 says Prof Mohamed Shaker Al Marqibi the Egyptian Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy.

The NREA is assessing the international and local bids that were presented to choose the legal advisor for the partnership of Masdar and the NREA he added.

Talking to Khaleej Times Al Marqibi said that the two companies to be established by Masdar are Ras Ghareb for Investment with a share percentage of 75.9 per cent and Masdar Egypt for Investment with share of 0.1 per cent.

"About 17 legal consulting companies are now competing for the position in the Egyptian-Emirati company and the choice will be made this month. The new project aims at building a wind generator plant in Khaleg Al Suez which will generate 200MW worth ?440 million and will be jointly funded by Masdar and the NREA. A memorandum of understanding was also signed between Masdar and the NREA and a study of feasibility was made by the Danish AIS Cowi office for the NREA after they signed a contract worth $1 million which was an endowment from the Clean Technology Fund. The study ended last May and was discussed by the two parties" says Al Marqibi.

He added that a presidential decree has been issued allowing the NREA to form joint stock companies on its own or with other partners and that cooperation with Masdar is the beginning of the implementation of the presidential decree.

Al Marqibi said that there will be cooperation with the Emirati side to rehabilitate seven Egyptian electricity-generating steam plants as there is an agreement that will be carried out between the NREA and Abu Dhabi Distribution Company adding that the offer of the Emirati company includes funding the rehabilitation and the partial regaining of their lost abilities which is about 1300MW throughout this year and the rest of the lost energy which is about 1600MW to be regained by next year.

Al Marqibi added that an agreement has been signed between the NREA and the Saudi Aqua Power and Masdar union to establish three electricity-generating stations including a project using clean coal in Safaga that generates 2000MW which they will start to build this year and is due to work by 2019. In addition to this there will be two projects that will be implemented next year; the first will yield 500MW of wind-generated energy in the Ras Ghareb district and will start functioning in 2018 while another will yield 1500MW of solar energy (by photovoltaic cells) in Aswan which will be carried out in three phases starting from next year and is due to start functioning from 2017 to 2019.

He added that an agreement of understanding that was signed between Egyptian Electric Holding Company and consortium of Orascom International Petroleum Investment Company and the UAE's ATD Combustors and will be activated to build an electricity-generation plant using coal in the Al Hamrawein district in the Red Sea governorate.

Another agreement of understanding which will be signed with the UAE's Al Noweis Group will be activated to build projects to generate electricity using coal in Eyoun Moussa and the Red Sea districts.

The minister explained that a compound that features four electricity-generating plants will be built in two phases; each phase will be composed of two units that will yield 1320MW that will increase to 2640MW with investments worth E5 billion. He stressed that the research that was carried out by the Emirati group stated that a third phase could be added that will yield 1320MW.

He said that there is a wide range of cooperation between Egypt and the UAE which include exchanging expertise in the field of electricity generation networks rationalisation improving the quality of energy using renewable energy and the cooperation in the field of electricity generating distribution and environmental studies. There will also be investment support in the field of local manufacturing of electrical industries and developing the abilities in the field of renovation operating and maintenance of electricity stations as well as training and developing human resources and preparing leaders.

Al Marqibi added that the Emirati side had an effective role in providing frontier governorates villages and complexes that were not tied to the main electricity network with electricity by applying photovoltic cell techniques through a grant worth $140 million. This occurred on the October 26 2013 when a framework grant agreement was signed between the Egyptian government and the government of the UAE in which it will provide Egypt with a grant to finance some developmental projects including providing electricity to places that are away from the main electrical network.

On the March 17 2014 an executive agreement was signed with Masdar that would carry out the aforementioned projects to provide 167000 citizens who were deprived of electricity or suffered from the service and 264 villages and towns in nine governorates with electricity via designing importing installing and operating solar electricity-generating systems which are due to be carried out during this year.

The writer is the managing editor of Al Ahram Al Massai. Views expressed are his own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy.