Press Release 05 October 2007

Cairo, Egypt 13/5/2008

In the presence of his Excellency Dr. Hassan A Younes,
Minister of Electricity and Energy, Arab Republic of Egypt,
the World Energy Council and Egyptian WEC Member Committee present:

Global launch of the World Energy Councils “Performance of Generating Plants” report

The power industry around the world is undergoing major changes, increasingly opening up to the global energy imperatives and challenges of liberalisation, market, security of supply and environment. At the same time, one-fourth of the world population lacks access to electricity; and the need for energy infrastructure investment is huge. In this context improving the performance of the existing power generation facilities across the world could produce substantial benefits and - to a certain extent - alleviate the pressing need for new capacity. The most fundamental challenge facing the electric power industry is meeting the rapidly growing demand for energy services in a sustainable way, at an affordable cost and in the environmentally acceptable manner.

The new report “Performance of Generating Plant: Managing the Changes” published by the World Energy Council presents a comprehensive picture of the ongoing trends in the electric power industry all over the world and highlights the tangible and quantifiable benefits that can be achieved by improving power plant performance.

His Excellency Dr. Hassan A Younes who presided the Global launch of the PGP report today said:

"Performance improvement of generating plant enables optimum use of current resources. In this context, the Egyptian generating companies in corporation with the Egyptian electricity utility and consumer protection regulatory agency, adopts a comprehensive programme for benchmarking and performance evaluation of generating plants. This is consistent with the role of this agency to ensure the national use of necessary investment to meet the continued increase in demand. Egypt has hosted the launch of the Performance of Generating Plant report inline with its interest to exchange experience with the international counterparts on performance level."

Dr. Karl Theis, Managing Director of VGB, Germany and Chair of the WEC Committee on Power Plant Performance summarised:

“The challenge is both to improve the performance of the existing generating plant stock and to build enough – but not too much - new generation and transmission capacity to meet growth in demand. This growth is widely expected to continue long into the 21st century, with over 70% of it coming from developing countries. Performance improvement of existing power plants is the most cost-effective way to increase the electricity-producing capabilities of a utility, improve the overall energy efficiency of the industry and achieve substantial environmental benefits.”

Elena Nekhaev, Director of Programmes at the World Energy Council said:

“WEC has calculated that by improving the performance of existing power generation park around the world to the performance levels currently attained by the top 25% of plant operators, the power industry worldwide could save 80 billion dollars per year and avoid about one billion tonnes of CO2 emissions (around 4% of the total global emissions). Moreover, this could be achieved at the cost/benefit ratio of 1 to 4, and would require only minor equipment replacements”,

The executive summary and full report are available for download on 
http://www.worldenergy.org/publications

WEC Media contact:
Mathias Hocke: hocke@worldenergy.org
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7734 5996
Stephan Albrechtskirchinger: albrechtskirchinger@worldenergy.org
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7734 5996