Benban Solar Park

Benban Solar Park is a large-scale photovoltaic power station in Egypt with a current installed capacity of 1800 MW (1.8 GW) nominal power which corresponds to an annual production of approximately 3.8-4.5 TWh. It is located in Benban (Aswan Governorate) in the western desert, approximately 650 km south of Cairo and 40 km northwest of Aswan. Benban is one of the largest solar power plants in the world.

In September 2014, the project was initiated as part of Egyptian government's Sustainable Energy Strategy 2035. Initially, NASA had aided in finding the best location to establish the solar park. Benban Solar Park located on an area of 37.2 km2 (14.4 mi2) which is subdivided into 41 separate plots arranged in 4 rows with each plot range in size from 0.3 km2 (0.12 mi2) to 1 km2 (0.39 mi2). Each plot will be available to different companies to develop 41 plants. The 41 plants in the Benban solar park will be connected to the high voltage network through four new substations, which will be constructed on the site by the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC). These substations will in turn connect to an existing 220 kV line, which passes near the Benban Site at a distance of approximately 12 km. At a later stage EETC may also construct an additional connection to the neighbouring 500 kV line. According to measurements reported in the environmental & social assessment report the solar site resource is approximately 2,300 kWh/(m2-yr). Assuming a peak insolation of 1000 W/m2 this translates to a potential plant capacity factor of approximately 26%, i.e. the average capacity will be 26% of the nameplate capacity. If the planned capacity of 1.8 GW is utilized the potential annual energy production will be slightly more than 4 TWh/yr. The Benban Solar Park is a part of Egypt's Nubian Suns Feed-in Tariff program, which is a major initiative to influence private sector capital and expertise, in order to support the goal of generating 20% electricity from renewable resources by 2022. The solar park is so large that it is visible from space.

Power station data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).