Funds secured to expand electricity grid

AMMAN — Jordan has secured a 100 million euros loan to expand its electricity grid's capacity, which will help reopen the door to endorse renewable energy projects that had been shelved due to lack of capacity, a senior official said Saturday.

"We are in the final stages of preparing the deal, which will be signed soon with the French Development Agency and the European Investment Bank," Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Mohammad Hamed told The Jordan Times.

A tender will be floated soon and work on expanding the grid will begin in the first quarter of 2015, he added.

Expanding the grid's capacity by additional 1,000 megawatts (MW) under the project will be completed in two years as of inception, said the minister, noting that the grid's current capacity stands at 4,300MW.

"When the project is completed, we will open the door anew for implementing several renewable energy projects," said the minister.

"We may give the green light to some projects ahead of the completion of the project," he added.

Early August, the government cancelled plans to accept proposals to build five wind-run power plants with a total capacity of 400MW due to the grid’s constraints at present and inability to handle more loads.

Also in August, the government said it turned down proposals to build four renewable energy power plants with a capacity of 100MW each. 

Jordan has one of the highest annual daily averages of solar irradiance in the world with an estimated 330 days of sunshine per year, while wind speeds in the country are as high as 7.5 metres to 11.5 metres per second in hilly areas.

The Kingdom, which imports about 97 per cent of its energy needs, is working on a series of renewable energy projects that will increase the contribution of local energy resources to the energy mix from the current 3 per cent to 40 per cent by 2020.