Bids for a New 220 kV Power Substation at Marsa Alam Are Opened on Tuesday

The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company is due to open the tender envelopes for the construction of a 220 kV electricity substation at Marsa Alam on Tuesday 6 October, according to the energy trade paper Power News, which published the notice sent to the competing companies in a report by Walid El-Behnasawy.

That is the whole of what has been made public. The report gives no cost estimate, does not name the companies bidding, and sets no date for construction or completion. Opening the envelopes is the step at which prices become known, not the step at which building begins.

It is the second Red Sea substation tender at this voltage to reach that stage in a matter of days: Hurghada News reported earlier today that bids to build a Safaga substation came in at 963 million pounds. Both sit against a summer in which Hurghada residents reported repeated cuts and swinging voltage.

For Marsa Alam — a town whose hotels, airport and new housing all draw on the same grid — a 220 kV substation is the kind of work whose value only shows up years later, in cuts that do not happen.