Preparatory work on the infrastructure for the long awaited 60 MW wind power station at Zafarana (Windpower Monthly, September 1998) is now underway. Housing is being built for maintenance personnel on site and contracts with turbine suppliers are nearing completion, according to the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), Germany's overseas development bank. It is providing a loan for the first stage of the project together with Danish overseas aid agency Danida. Responses to an invitation to tender for the first 20 MW of the German share of the project are being evaluated by KfW this month. It has requested 500 kW or 600 kW turbines. The KfW is providing a loan of DEM 65 million for the first 20 MW, DEM 15 million of which is being spent on a transformer station for a new cable link. Denmark is also proceeding with its portion of the 60 MW. "Our aim is to have the contracts signed by the end of this year," says Andre Bronus of COWI Consult, the Danish firm overseeing the tendering process for Danida. "It is not decided yet," he adds. The Egyptian government has set a target for 600 MW of wind power by 2005 and reportedly hopes to have 90 MW installed at Zafarana within the next year or so. An Associated Press report in November that construction is to begin this month on the Zafarana wind farm was premature.
