A new Egypt-Jordan electricity link upgrade may be in the works: Egypt and Jordan are currently conducting a technical and financial study for a new 1.1 GW subsea power cable, a government source told Enterprise. The total 2 GW link between the two countries, announced by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly in August and reported by Ahram Online, will be supported by the proposed subsea cable as a way to reduce costs.

When’s decision time? The two countries will decide by the end of the year whether to implement the plan.

What we know so far: The state expects to break ground on the first phase of the capacity expansion in 1Q 2024, our source told us. The new cable will be laid in tandem with work on the Egypt-Iraq link and its first phase is expected to wrap by the end of 2024. We haven’t heard how much this is all going to cost, but our source told us that Jordan will pay for the project without going into details about how the country plans to finance it.

*Correction on 16 October 2023: Our initial coverage said that Jordan and Egypt had scaled back their initial planned upgrade to our electricity link between the countries to 1.1 GW for the time being due to economic headwinds. Instead, they are studying channeling 1.1 GW of a total 2.2 GW link through a subsea cable as a cheaper alternative to on-land cables.

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