The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) and China's Consortium of (Xian XD, Changzou and EGEMAC) on Sunday signed an agreement to carry out a project of solar energy transformer stations in Aswan's district of Benban as part of the Egyptian government's bid to resort to clean energy sources to resolve power problems.

The agreement comes as part of the Ministry of Electricity's plan to maximize the use of clean energy as the Benban project will provide an additional 1,800 megawatt to the national power grid.

The purpose of the project is to meet the development of loads in Benban region and discharge of the generated power from the solar stations.

The project, with a total value of EGP 595 million, will be financed by the investors who are the owners of the solar units in Benban according to an agreement of cost sharing. It will be carried out within eight months of signing the agreement.

To meet the rapidly rising demand for electricity, Egypt decided to diversify its energy mix and invited foreign solar energy developers to construct solar and wind energy projects that were approved by the government as part of an all-out plan to support renewable energy investments.