A joint venture partnership involving Germany, Denmark and Egypt has participated in the construction of the Zafarana Wind Farm in Egypt. As of February 2008 the wind farm project has been producing electricity since 2004 with 55 Nordex wind turbines generating 33MW and 71 Vestas V47 wind generator units generating a further 47 MW giving the wind farm a total output capacity of 80MW. A final pahse of the project is currently in production which should increase that capacity to 160MW. This final phase should be completed some time in 2008.

The Zafarana Wind Farm is located 120km south of Suez on the Red Sea, it is a location with extreme conditions and the wind turbines that have been installed have been specially prepared to cope with Egypt’s hot desert climate, sand storms and salty air. Special seals had to be created to prevent sand from getting in to the units and rotor-blade cleaning have been planned for several times per year.

It is anticipated that the completed project will feed 600 GWh per annum into Egypt’s national grid, while saving more than 360,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions and clean electricity will be delivered to some 340,000 Egyptian households.

At the June 2004 International Conference on Renewable Energies (Renewables) in Bonn, Egypt affirmed its commitment to increase the share taken up by renewable energy in generating its national power requirement to 14% by the year 2020.

For more information you can visit the Danish CDM Programme.