Egypt’s first solar-powered underground water pumping station will be inaugurated Thursday, Al Ahram reported.
Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Hossam Moghazy is scheduled to head for Aswan Thursday to give the go-ahead to the station located in Toshka, southwest of Egypt’s Sahara Desert.
Due to Toshka’s remote location, the new station will use sunlight to pump water from a lake Nasser to irrigate agricultural land on the two banks of the Toshka New Valley project, instead of relying on running an outside power line to the area, Moghazy was quoted as saying by Al Ahram.
Egypt’s electricity sector has adopted plans to cover 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020, amid efforts to procure energy for running power plants.
Rolling blackouts in Egypt have become routine in the past few years, especially during the peak usage season in the summer, a crisis largely attributed to fuel shortages.
In March, the government announced the inauguration of the first solar power plant in Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, as part of aid projects granted by the United Arab Emirates to provide electricity to some 243 villages and cities in Egypt.
