Egypt's Siemens Power Plants to go online

Power plants built by Germany's Siemens (SIEMENS.NS) in Egypt are set to go online in December this year and will reach full capacity in May 2018, the Egyptian prime minister's office said on Sunday.

Egypt signed an 8 billion-euro ($8.9 billion) deal with Siemens in June 2015 that calls for three combined-cycle power plants with a capacity of 4,800 megawatts each, plus 12 wind farms, and is designed to boost the country's electricity generation by 50 percent.

Some plants will go online in December with a combined capacity of 4,440 megawatts, the prime minister's office said in a statement, and the three plants will be operating at their combined full capacity of 14,400 megawatts by May 2018.

Egypt is going through its worst energy crisis in decades, with power cuts common as its ageing state-run infrastructure struggles to handle rapidly growing demand for electricity in a country of 87 million people.

A group of banks had agreed to supply credit for the Beni Suef gas-fired combined cycle power plant, the first of the three new plants, in November 2015.

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(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Greg Mahlich)