ASWAN, Egypt, March 22 (Xinhua) -- China's renewable energy company TBEA Sunoasis has finished the construction of three solar power stations at the Benban Solar Energy Park in Egypt's southern province of Aswan, a TBEA official said.
The stations, with an output of 186 megawatts, are part of the giant Benban Solar Plant, Gu Huchen, director of Engineering Management Department of TBEA's New Energy International Engineering Division, told Xinhua.
"The project consists of three sub-projects, each with a capacity of approximately 62 megawatts," Gu said, adding that about 600,000 components were used in the projects.
The projects, which TBEA started to build a year ago, are owned by Spanish renewable energy project developer Acciona and Saudi investment firm Swicorp, with an investment of around 180 million U.S. dollars.
The three projects are financially backed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Two of the projects have started to sell power to local utility under a 25-year feed-in tariff contract, Rawy Komar, an engineer with Acciona told Xinhua.
"The third will reach full capacity with grid connection in about one week," he added. The Benban Solar Plant, which is expected to be fully completed in mid-2019, aims to generate around 2 gigawatts of utility-scale solar capacity through a total of 40 stations.
The park, about 650 km south of Cairo, is financed by a number of global funding agencies and banks, including the AIIB and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
The solar plant, which occupies an area of 37 square km, will help Egypt increase its use of renewable energy to 22 percent of all domestic energy use by 2020.
The project is estimated to help to reduce global greenhouse gas emission through cutting more than half a million tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Talking about the construction period, Gu said that "at the peak, there were about 1,500 Egyptians on the scene. Around 1,300 are from Aswan, while the rest of them are from Luxor and Alexandria."
"According to our vague calculations, we have provided at least 5,000 jobs to the local area throughout the construction process," Gu added.
TBEA Sunoasis is a major global green and smart energy service provider with business in more than 20 countries. It is devoted to achieving sustainable development of human society with the use of smart, efficient and green energy.
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