The photo is sourced atomvestnik.ru
“Today, we are witnessing a landmark event in the history of Egypt’s nuclear energy and the Russia–Egypt relations. With the pouring of concrete into the foundation slab of power unit No. 4, the construction of Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, the largest collaborative project between our countries since the Aswan Dam, kicks into high gear. All four power units of the El Dabaa NPP are now under construction. This means that the Egypt-based construction site is becoming one of the two largest in the world,” Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev is quoted as saying by the State Corporation.
Each of the four planned reactors will have the net capacity of 1.1 gigawatts (GW). Construction of the first power unit began in July 2022, with the second and third reactors entering construction in November 2022 and May 2023, respectively. El Dabaa is the second-ever nuclear power plant in Africa’s history. The first facility of this kind to be built on the continent was the Koeberg NPP in South Africa, both reactors of which (with an aggregate capacity of 1.8 GW) were connected to the grid between 1984 and 1985.
The construction and subsequent launch of the NPP will allow Egypt to increase the role of low-carbon power generation in its energy mix. According to the Ember research centre, wind, solar and hydropower accounted for a total of 11.2% of Egypt’s power generation in 2022, while gas- and fuel oil-fired power plants made up 88.8% of the country’s power output. As a result, the specific volume of greenhouse gas emissions from power generation in Egypt is slightly above the African average (609 grams of CO2-equivalent versus 591 grams of CO2-equivalent).
In addition to South Africa and Egypt, an important role in the development of nuclear energy in Africa is played by Namibia and Niger, which ranked third and seventh, respectively, in uranium mining worldwide in 2022 (with a global share of 15%, according to the World Nuclear Association).
