Norway’s Scatec Solar announced on 16 October the grid connection of its sixth and final 50MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project at the Benban solar park, which is under development in the desert 40km north of Aswan in southern Egypt. Scatec says its six-unit 300MW project at Benban represents the world’s largest plant using bi-facial solar modules, which capture sunlight on both sides to improve energy recovery compared with conventional PV panels. The latest project to start up is the Scatec Benban IV or ‘Red Sea Solar’ project, which followed completion of the Scatec Benban II project or ‘Kom Ombo’ last month (MEES, 6 September).
Scatec is the largest developer at Benban, where government’s renewables agency NREA offered 40 plots to developers with aims of installing 1.8GW of PV capacity. Although not all of the plots were taken, NREA awarded projects expected to have a total capacity of 1.47GW. When they are all operating, the solar park will have capacity to deliver 1.47GW of electricity to the grid. Recent MEES analysis of satellite images of Benban show that the completed projects will have 1.2GW capacity by the end of 2019 (MEES, 23 August). (CONTINUED - 190 WORDS)