Cairo: Engineering group Siemens has taken another step towards becoming one of the world's top three wind turbine makers by 2012 by installing a 250-megawatt renewable energy plant in Egypt's Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea coast.
Egypt's state news agency quoted Emad Gali, head of Siemens's renewable energy, oil and gas operations, as saying Egypt has huge potential in generating renewable energy, but has not used it optimally.
The agency's report gave no further details.
Until recently Germany-based Siemens has ranked as the world's sixth biggest manufacturer of wind turbines in terms of market share, behind Denmark's Vestas, US General Electric, Spain's Gamesa, Germany's Enercon and India's Suzlon.
Siemens, Europe's biggest engineering conglomerate, said last week it was on track towards becoming one of the world's top three wind turbine makers by 2012.
Research shows that the world market for wind turbine installations was worth about 45 billion euros ($61.25 billion, Dh224 billion) in 2009 and that global installed capacity will more than double to 340 gigawatts by 2013.
Egypt has been developing wind power along its eastern Red Sea coast. It has wind farms at Zafarana and Hurghada in the area, and has so far installed capacity of 430 megawatts (MW) of wind energy.
Officials say Egypt's combined oil and gas reserves will last the most populous Arab country roughly three decades, encouraging a shift to alternative energy sources, including wind, solar and nuclear.
The country expects to see its wind power capacity reach 7,200MW by 2020 and is already boosting the capacity to 550MW by May.
