Egypt has significant wind energy potential, but was unable to develop wind farms on its own due to a lack of manufacturing capacity and insufficient financing capability. Nevertheless, the most recent addition to the Zafarana wind farm is a 240 MW phase that has just been completed with the help of Danish and Japanese government aid agencies. With this latest installation, the total installed capacity at the Zafarana wind farm is now 545 MW. The project, which represents an important step in deployment of large scale wind power in Egypt, has contributed greatly by providing operatinal experience in power plant operation, as well as bringing local assembly of the wind turbines.

The Zafarana wind farm project has been started back in 2001, and over the years several phases have been built with the help of Danish, German, Spanish and Japanese government agencies.

Based on the experience accumulated during the development of the Zafarana wind energy project, the Egyptian government is now opening a larger area (about 656 km2) at El-Zayt, south of Zafarana. The new area has about 3 GW of wind power potential. This project will involve private sector investment for the first time. Just to illustrate the possibilities, wind speeds in the area are known to reach 11 m/s which represents a good base for wind energy exploitation.

Egypt is planning to achieve 20% of renewable power generation by 2020, and more than half of that from wind power.