Iberdrola has started its plans to commission the 150-MW Kuraymat power plant due south of Cairo, which fuses solar energy with a combined cycle gas plant, even in Egypt was a “nightmare”.
The Integrated Solar Combined Cycle (ISCC) facility was opened this month.
The project has a total capacity of 150 megawatts (MW).
This facility incorporates technology that combines the use of gas and solar energy and is one of the first of its kind in the world.
The power plant is located 95 kilometers south of Cairo, will supply enough power for 200,000 people while saving around 16,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere each year.
At Kuraymat project 1,000 people have worked over the last three years.
The Egyptian plant has been built very close to the River Nile.
The area where the plant is built has become a strategically important region for the generation and distribution of electricity in Egypt.
Having this solar-gas plant, Egypt will save 5,000 tonnes of natural gas every year.
Iberdrola Engineering built and designed this ISCC-type facility to work in two different operational modes, in order to increase efficiency: during the night it operates as a conventional natural gas combined cycle plant, while during the day it operates a normal cycle but with the added energy provided by the sun.
On one side, the Kuraymat plant is fitted with a General Electric model 6FA gas turbine and a Siemens model SST900 steam turbine, while on the other it has a solar field covering 130,800 m2, with 160 parabolic cylinder CSP collectors and 1,900 m2 of mirrors.
Kuraymat is the first solar thermal electric facility in Egypt.
The offshore wind farms are located far out into the sea; they trap winds at faster speeds than they would on land, and also, save up a lot of land space. 
