German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi symbolically inaugurated the first phase of Siemens’ megaproject in Egypt last month.

The event marked an important milestone towards the completion of the project, which will boost the country’s power generation capacity by 45 per cent when finished.

Together with its local partners Orascom Construction and Elsewedy Electric, Siemens broke all records in modern power plant construction by connecting 4.8 GW of new capacity to the grid in only 18 months after the signing of the contract for the company’s biggest single order ever.

The construction works for Siemens’ megaproject in Egypt are enormous. More than 1.6 million tonnes of material – including 960,000 tonnes of concrete and 48,000 tonnes of rebar steel – will be processed until completion. At Beni Suef, massive excavation works were necessary to prepare the site, leading to the removal of around 1,750,000 cu m of rocks. When completed, each of the three power plants, located at Beni Suef, New Capital and Burullus, is set to become the biggest gas-fired combined-cycle power station in the world. Altogether, the three power plants will have a combined capacity of 14.4 GW.

To increase the capacity of the transmission network nationwide, Siemens has successfully put the first three substations into operation that will transmit the electricity generated by the three power plants to Egypt’s grid. The remaining substations will be completed by the year-end.