Siemens Energy inaugurated on Thursday a service centre and training academy in Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone in Ain El-Sokhna, Suez governorate.

The service centre is the first of its kind in the region, combining a repair centre, a tooling centre and a spare-parts warehouse under one roof.

The premises of the service centre also include the Egyptian German Technical Academy (EGT Academy), which will serve as a state-of-the-art training hub for the vocational training in the region.

The Academy represents a strategic alliance between Siemens and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

It offers an innovative public-private partnership model which offers occupational training to engineers and technicians in all industries and provides them with the opportunity to develop their skills in a variety of areas, including workplace safety and automation. In addition to supporting vocational training and education in Egypt, the academy positions itself as a unique service provider offering demand-driven training needs to local industry.   

The facilities were inaugurated by President and CEO of Siemens AG and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Siemens Energy AG Joe Kaeser and Executive Vice President of Generation at Siemens Energy Karim Amin.

The inauguration was also attended by German Ambassador in Egypt, Cyrill Nunn; Egypt’s Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy Mohamed Shaker; Chairman of Suez Canal Development Zone Yehia Zaki, and other senior executives from Siemens Energy.

“This service centre marks a significant step in our commitment towards Egypt and the region. With this facility we aim to provide advanced maintenance and repair technologies for the power generation industry in Egypt and its neighbouring countries. The strategic location in Ain Sokhna, including the excellent facilities in the Suez Canal Development Zone, and the bright Egyptian youth trained in the inhouse academy will turn this centre into a real hub for the entire region,” said Executive Vice President Amin.

At the inauguration, Siemens Energy signed an Agreement of Intent with the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company and the Egyptian Maintenance Company to establish a joint venture at the service centre that will enable remote support for power plant outages.

The joint venture repair centre is digitally connected and will, in the future, house digital expert and power diagnostics centres to provide support and maintenance for distributed control systems, gas and steam turbines, and generators.

The service centre will increase localisation in Egypt’s energy supply chain and support the local economy.

Siemens AG CEO Joe Kaser met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss how the German powerhouse is looking to develop its activities in Egypt, especially in the sectors of smart transportation systems and industrial digitisation.

Siemens AG, the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe, has been operating in Egypt since 1859, with its technologies having been implemented in different areas across the country including a $9 billion deal in 2015 to build power plants and wind power installations to provide 14.4 gigawatts to the national grit.

The megaproject includes three 4.8-gigawatt turnkey combined cycle power plants and 12 wind parks with approximately 600 wind turbines.