The Benban Solar Park aims to reach somewhere between 1.6-2.0GW of solar power by the middle of 2019. The projects will receive no incentives, however, it will be given a 25 year contract to sell its electricity at 7.8¢/kWh to the the state-owned Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company and pegged to the value of the US dollar.
Currently, 29 projects have received financing – representing at least $1.8 billion in public financing. These 29 projects represent almost 1.5GW of solar power.
The land was initially laid out with 41 unique plots ranging from 0.12mi2 to 0.39mi2. The total land area of the park is approximately 14.4mi2. This eastern region of the Sahara Desert has some of the best solar power resources – sunlight – on the planet. Better than the US/Mexico western desert, but maybe just behind the world’s best spot in the Chilean desert highlands.
At least 325MW of the site will make use of NEXTracker’s single axis trackers. NEXTracker just put out a solid technical press release showing off bifacial solar panels combined with single axis trackers. Another 64MW of single axis trackers will be deployed by German group ‘Mounting Systems GmbH.‘