Table of Contents
A solar and battery storage plant in southern Egypt backed by the construction and infrastructure group of Egyptian tycoon Hassan Allam has secured up to $63.5 million in financing from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The package for Nefer Benban for Renewable Energy, the project company building the plant at the Benban solar park near Aswan, is made up of a loan of as much as $56 million from the EBRD's own funds and up to $7.5 million in concessional money from the Clean Technology Fund of the Climate Investment Funds, the bank said this week.
Nefer Benban is owned by Infinity Power, the Egyptian renewable energy developer, and HAU Energy, an investment platform set up in 2024 by Hassan Allam Utilities, French infrastructure investor Meridiam and the EBRD.
A plant that stores the sun
The project pairs a 258.5-megawatt-peak solar array with a 120-megawatt-hour battery, making it one of the first solar plants in Egypt with storage. The batteries will hold surplus power generated during the day and release it into the grid during the evening peak, after the sun has set.
The plant will sell its electricity to the state-owned Egyptian Electricity Transmission Co. under a 25-year power purchase agreement. The EBRD said the power will cost less than electricity from conventional plants, cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 349,000 tons a year and supply about 310,000 homes.
The new package follows an earlier round of funding. In April, the EBRD agreed a $65 million construction bridge loan with HAU Energy, and Germany's development finance institution DEG put in the same amount, bringing that debt to as much as $127 million.
Part of the concessional money will pay for two accredited green-skills training programs in Aswan province and for measures to improve gender equality at HAU Energy.
Dalia Wahba, chief executive of Hassan Allam Investment Managers, said the financing showed the continued confidence of international partners in Egypt's renewable energy sector. Nayer Fouad, co-founder and chief executive of Infinity Power, said the company was proud to return to Benban, where its work began in 2017.
Egypt's green power push
The plant forms part of the energy pillar of Egypt's Nexus of Water, Food and Energy program, which the EBRD leads. The program, launched when Egypt hosted the COP27 climate summit in 2022, aims to retire 5 gigawatts of inefficient fossil-fuel capacity and add 10 gigawatts of private renewable generation.
Infinity Power is a joint venture formed in 2019 by Egypt's Infinity group and Abu Dhabi's Masdar, and describes itself as Africa's largest pure-play renewable energy company. The EBRD also owns a stake in it. The bank has invested more than €16 billion ($17.9 billion) in 238 projects in Egypt since it started working in the country in 2012.
The Allam family group
Hassan Allam Utilities is the infrastructure investment arm of Hassan Allam Holding, the Cairo-based engineering and construction group founded in 1936 and still controlled by the Allam family. Hassan Allam is its chief executive. The group builds roads, bridges, airports, power plants and water facilities across Egypt, the Middle East and Africa, and through its utilities business it has moved into owning the assets it once only built, from renewable energy plants to water and wastewater projects.
Figures were converted at €1 to $1.12.
The intelligence satisfies curiosity. The paid briefings satisfy strategy.
Every Monday, Elite subscribers receive an Investor Memo breaking down the deal, the structure and the positioning behind the week's most consequential African wealth story — the kind of analysis that doesn't appear anywhere else.
Twice a month, a Wealth Intelligence brief profiles a single billionaire's holdings, cash flows and expansion pipeline in detail no public source matches.
→ Executive ($25/mo): Daily newsletter + Deep-Dive Reports
→ Elite ($75/mo): Everything above + Investor Memos + Wealth Intelligence + Quarterly Analyst Briefings
Subscribe now
