Gov’t plans five PPP desalination plants worth USD 800 mn, with operations expected to begin in 2030

The Madbouly government is planning five desalination plants via public-private partnerships worth USD 800 mn, according to a government document seen by Asharq Business. Two plants are planned for the Red Sea governorate in Hurghada and Ras Banas, and the other three are in Ras El Hekma, Alexandria, and East Port Said. The five plants would add 525k cbm / d of desalination capacity, with operations expected by 2030 as part of Egypt’s long-term seawater desalination strategy through 2050.

REMEMBER- Egypt’s renewables-powered desalination PPP rollout has repeatedly slipped its timetable. The first tender, initially planned for December 2025, was pushed to January 2026 and is now expected in December. The wider plan aims to lift desalination capacity to 8.85 mn cbm / d by 2050, requiring an estimated USD 8.5 bn in capital investment.

Trash talk

Heidelberg Materials Egypt acquired a 36.4% minority stake in local waste-to-energy firm ZeroCarbon, according to the Competition Authority’s notice, marking a tie-up that secures the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and biomass now displacing part of the coal, gas, and mazut burned in its kilns. The investment backs a new RDF production facility in 10th of Ramadan City and upgrades to ZeroCarbon’s existing sites and advances the cement maker’s target of lifting RDF past 30% of its total alternative-fuel consumption, the two companies said in a joint statement.

IN CONTEXT- Alternative fuels are taking a growing share of Egypt’s cement industry. A few producers are already pushing RDF past 30-40% of their energy mix (well past the government’s clean-fuel mandate, which was raised from 10% to 15%) as rising energy prices make waste-derived alternatives increasingly cost-competitive with fossil fuels.

Charging up the Ring Road

The Ring Road’s electric buses now have a charging partner: Sha7en EV Solutions, the EV arm of EGX-listed MB Engineering, signed an EGP 119 mn contract to supply, install, and operate 92 fast-charging systems for the Ring Road BRT, the company said in a statement (pdf). The units would use the European charging protocol and sit at the project’s depots along the Ring Road, running to a total capacity of 15,000 kWh. Sha7en puts the phased rollout at three months.

IN CONTEXT- The contract lands three weeks after the BRT corridor pushed west. Passenger service on the second phase opened on 26 September, taking the BRT from the Alexandria Agricultural Road intersection to a new terminus at Sun Capital on the Fayoum Road junction — 16 stations, 11 now in service and Zahraa El Maadi, Autostrad and Mansouriya to follow, on a route now 75 km long, according to a Transport Ministry statement. Sun Capital is itself a charging hub: 80k sqm with 21 chargers of its own, plus SuperJet and intercity terminals.

Why it matters: The state is contracting out the charging backbone rather than owning it, and the operator it picked is already inside the program: Sha7en runs charging and maintenance for the electric bus depots in the New Capital and at Talaat Moustafa Group’s Noor City. It holds a licence to operate EV charging stations since 2022 and says it runs a network of charging points across 10 governorates. The hardware side stays in the group: sister company MB for Industry builds under the Beta Electric brand.