The Official Gazette published on Thursday a presidential decree, No 38 for the year 2016, approving a loan from Kuwait to Egypt worth 30 million dinars for a mega electricity project.
Egypt's government and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development had signed an agreement in Cairo on November 11, 2015, for funding the Egyptian-Saudi electricity linkage project.
Egypt is one of the countries participanting in the Gulf electricity linkage project, which will be part of a comprehensive Arab electricity linkage project.
The project costs up to $1.6 billion, with Egypt contributing $610 million, and aims to establish the infrastructure of an electicity grid linking Arab countries for electricity trade and a common electricity market.
The Saudi Electricity Company and the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company will each be responsible, within the territory of its own country, for financing, owning, operating and maintaining the network interconnecting equipment of the project. Whereas the ownership, financing and operation of the marine cables that will cross the Gulf of Aqaba will be equally shared between the two companies.
The trial run of the electricity linkage project between Saudi Arabia and Egypt is expected to start in mid-July 2017, according to a statement by Mohamed al-Yamany, a member of the Egyptian-Saudi committee responsible for electricity and energy subsidies.
He explained that the project will contribute to the exchange of about 3,000 MW between the two networks, by taking advantage of the difference in the two countries' peak times due to time zones.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
