Egypt has chosen a Chinese consortium to build what would be the world’s largest coal-fuelled power station outside the Red Sea port of Hamrawein.

If built, it would usurp the current record-holder, a power station in Taiwan (pictured).

Three international consortiums had been in the running to build the 6GW plant:

A Sino-American team led by General Electric and Harbin Electric of China;

A Japanese consortium that included Mitsubishi and Hitachi in partnership with Elsewedy Electric and Orascom Electric of Egypt; and

Shanghai Electric and the Dongfang Electric Corporation of Sichuan with Hassan Allam Construction of Egypt.

It was reported in May that Shanghai and Dongfang had offered to build the scheme for $4.4bn, $800m less than GE and $1.8bn less than the Japanese.

The station’s generating capacity would be 500MW greater than the Taichung Power Plant in Taiwan, the current holder of the record for the world’s largest coal-fired plant, and for carbon production. In 2009 the plant produced 36 million tonnes, or about the same amount as Switzerland.

As with the Taiwanese plant, Hamrawein would run on coal bought from low cost producers, delivered by ship. Taichung has six unloaders that deliver coal to 10 550MW plants.

Image: The Taichung plant in Taiwan: the world’s largest single emitter of carbon dioxide (Creative Commons)