Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated the construction of the fourth unit of the El-Dabaa nuclear power plant in Egypt on 23 January.

The virtual event marks the start of the construction phase for the fourth and final unit of the 4.8GW nuclear power plant, located in the Matrouh province on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.

Egypt and Russia signed the initial inter-governmental agreement for the North African state’s first nuclear facility in November 2015.

“The cooperation between our two countries continues and is developing. Egypt is a close friend of ours and a strategic partner,” Putin said, according to Egyptian state media.

The El-Dabaa nuclear power plant will have four units, each capable of generating 1,200MW of electricity.

The plant’s first reactor is scheduled to be operational in 2026.

Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom), the project’s main contractor, announced that it started the production of electrical components in Saint Petersburg for a reactor vessel for the plant in June 2022.

El-Dabaa project status

In September last year, the Egyptian Nuclear & Radiological Regulation Authority (ENRRA) granted a construction permit for the plant’s fourth reactor. ENRRA granted the construction permit for unit three in March 2023 and units one and two in June 2022 and October 2022, respectively.

In November 2022, South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility signed a contract valued at $1.2bn with state-owned South Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), a subsidiary of Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco), for the project.

Rosatom subsidiary ASE earlier appointed KHNP as the single supplier for constructing the turbine islands.

Energy hub ambition

The project supports Egypt’s goal to diversify its energy source and position itself as a regional energy hub that exports electricity to neighbouring countries.

Under Al-Sisis’s presidency, Egypt has moved from a severe electricity deficit to a roughly 20 per cent surplus. However, the North African country has been dealing with power cuts since the summer of 2023 after heatwaves drove up demand for cooling.

Production of natural gas used for power generation has also been dipping. According to a Reuters report, Egypt resorted to burning more polluting fuel oil in some power stations to keep up liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, an important source of scarce foreign currency.

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