ACWA Power to develop green hydrogen project in Egypt worth $4 billion

Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power has inked a framework agreement, following an MoU that was signed earlier to outline the development of the first phase of the green hydrogen project in Egypt with a capacity of 600,000 tonnes-per-year of green ammonia. The deal conceives an investment of more than $ 4 billion, with the intention of scaling up to a second phase with a potential capacity of 2 million tonnes-per-year.

The agreement was signed between ACWA Power and The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE), the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), and the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA).

ACWA said that the framework agreement marks the next step in the development of this large-scale Green Hydrogen facility. It lays out the development of the first phase of a green ammonia project with a capacity of 600,000 tonnes-per-year powered by wind and solar plants, with the intention of working on a larger green hydrogen project in the country which could have a capacity of up to two million-tonnes-per-year of green hydrogen.

Marco Arcelli, Chief Executive Officer of ACWA Power, said, “Egypt is well-positioned to become one of the world’s top producers of green hydrogen and we are elated to be a part of the country’s energy transition.”

It will be a significant addition to ACWA Power’s rapidly expanding green hydrogen portfolio. Development is well underway at the NEOM Green Hydrogen Project, a joint venture between ACWA Power, Air Products, and NEOM to create the world’s first utility-scale green hydrogen plant in the northwest of Saudi Arabia. The project will be capable of producing 1.2 million tonnes of green ammonia per year. The first wind turbines were delivered to the site in October.

On November 27th, the company broke ground on its second green hydrogen project, in Uzbekistan. The first phase of this project will be capable of producing 3,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year, with the intention to expand to a second phase. Once the second phase is complete, 2.4 GW of wind energy will power the production of 500,000 tonnes of green ammonia per year.

The company also signed further agreements during COP28 for green hydrogen projects in Jordan and Indonesia.