Tarboul Industrial City: The Smart, Sustainable and Livable City, in Line with Egypt’s Pledge as Part of COP 27

Interview with Ahmed Hamouda, Senior Investment Officer at GV Developments

What has GV done as an institution to create a more climate and environmentally friendly standard in its projects? Why are these efforts important to GV?

GV is working in various sectors and one of the main sectors is energy. In the past, we have worked in waste management with our WHR project dealing with waste heat recovery. We have the desalination project all over Egypt as well. Tarboul Industrial City accumulates all our experiences in the past to put them together in a better model.

To give more detail on the WHR project, it deals with waste heat coming from factories where we transfer the heat into electricity that is then used to run the factories. We are the first Egyptian company to implement this project in Egypt.

For our desalination project, when we get the saltwater from the sea, the reject is 70% salt concentrated more than the sea. The Red Sea is around 30%. We take this reject, we take the excess salt, and we get it back again to the sea with a lower concentration.

In addition, we are working on electric vehicles because we believe this market is going to be big in the next period and it is environmentally friendly as well. In all our projects, we have smart infrastructure and we have implemented battery charging stations to enhance this market. We are planning on moving into battery manufacturing, not only for cars, but to supply electricity for homes as well. We have international partners in Korea. Currently, we have the knowhow and the R&D in Korea and the manufacturing for the batteries will be in Egypt. The manufacturing facility will be in Tarboul, specifically, where we will manufacture batteries for cars, electric vehicles, e-tuk-tuks, scooters, etc., as well as the batteries for the homes.

These are the kinds of green projects that we are working on and we are working on them because we believe that the greener the economy, the better the economy.

One of the goals of COP 27 is the implementation of practical policies and pushing pledges into action. Can you highlight some specific advances and efforts GV has implemented with Tarboul Industrial City in line with Egypt’s pledge as part of COP 27, such as decarbonization and reducing emissions, water conservation, energy transition, climate mitigation, land effect, etc.?

We actually spent a lot of time in developing the idea of Tarboul and all our investment projects. Tarboul will be managed by a management company that will implement certain green policies. For example, all the factories will be obligated to install the WHR system to supply electricity in a greener way. Additionally, 30% of the electricity generated in Tarboul will come from solar energy. There will also be a water treatment facility so that we can reuse this water in production. We will also use this water to maintain and plant in the many green areas of Tarboul that add to the atmosphere. There will be smart infrastructure throughout Tarboul that will maintain the sustainability and the production, and will detect if there are any leaks, maintain and monitor the entire city, and to make sure that this implementation is going in the right direction. Tarboul will also have an innovation center and research centers to continue the developing and the monitoring of these ideas and doing research on how we are doing and how we can we improve this process. In addition to this, Tarboul is developing the area to have education centers, schools, hospitals. The residents in and around Tarboul will have a better place to work, live, and learn.

You recently signed an agreement with French company Amarenco Solarize to engage in solar energy in Tarboul. What are the specifics of this partnership and why did you choose Amarenco Solarize to work with?

They will do the infrastructure and provide the solar panels as well. We will provide the electricity in this way and sell it to the investors and factories in Tarboul. It will be cheaper for the factories compared to the normal supply side. We chose to partner with Amarenco Solarize because they have the same vision as us and they are very passionate about the idea of being green. That is the starting point. Because they have the same vision as us, we are in line with the same way of doing business as them.

How does Tarboul focus on transforming the surrounding land and area and what will the impact be on the local residents?

Tarboul will have more green areas which will result in a better atmosphere in the surroundings and limiting the emissions from the factories will also result in better climate. So, this will have a good impact on the residents in the area. They will have a better place to live, to educate, to work, to have fun, everything. It is a redevelopment of the area.

Tarboul is showcased as an industrial, sustainable, livable city. How does Tarboul fit within the COP 27 pledge of a sustainable economic model?

The business model or idea behind Tarboul is that you can divide every investor into two tiers. For example, if I have an investor that will come and invest in doing the factories, another investor will come in and invest in doing the infrastructure that will provide electricity, IT, network services, etc., and I will have another investor that will invest in the commercial areas, the real estate areas, the administrative areas. So, if the factory owner wants to store his products, he will store it in the warehouses produced by the warehouse investor. If he wants to manage his business, he will manage it from the administrative area. He can even show his products in the commercial outlets. It is a cycle. It is very integrated. In order for one side to work, all of them need to work together to make the model successful.

In addition to this, it is livable because in Egypt we have industrial parks, but people live within the factories. It is very hard to live that way. At Tarboul, we have separated the residential areas apart from the factories in the master plan in an environmentally friendly way. So, they can live near the factory where they work which will help in better production because the workers will have a better mindset, a better atmosphere for work. Also, they will have schools, hospitals, research centers, sports clubs, so they will be able live their normal life within the city.

Tarboul will be a smart city with a smart infrastructure and smart planning. It will be a closed gate network in terms of ICT services and network providers. It is a smart, livable city.

Are there additional goals or plans in line with the COP 27 pledges and values that you plan to implement in Tarboul in the future? What are the timelines for these?

We are working to be LEED certified with the help of Egis and the Egyptian National Research Institute. We are going to be the first industrial city in Egypt to be LEED certified.

Do you have a final message for the attendees of COP 27?

We are an Egyptian company, an Egyptian institution, and I am Egyptian. It is a pleasure for us as Egyptians and as Egypt to be hosting such an event. We encourage all the international attendees and all the attendees at COP 27 to give us their time to see the Egyptian innovations in this sector and, of course, to visit us to learn more about Tarboul.

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