Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has granted a €180mn (US$230.6mn) loan to Syria for the construction of two power stations at a combined capacity of 1,500MW.

IDB granted €95.9mn for partly financing the construction of Deir Ali power station, south of Damascus. The Deir Ali power station is a 750MW natural gas-run combined cycle power plant. Total cost of the plant is estimated at US$400mn and it will comprise two 250MW gas turbines and a 250MW steam turbine.

According to earlier reports, the Deir Ali power plant was scheduled to be financed by a €200mn loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB), KD30mn from the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) and €84.1mn from IsDB. The three loans would exceed the power plant’s projected cost by around 17%.

The other IDB loan agreement, which is worth €84.1mn, partly finances the establishment of a 750MW gas-run thermal station in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Azzour.

The Deir Ali plant will be built by Siemens and Koch of Germany and is expected to be completed in 26 months while Spain’s Iberdrola won a €430mn contract to build the Deir Azzour plant that is also scheduled to be operational in 26 months.

The Damascus-based Public Establishment for Electricity Generation and Transmission (PEEGT) is responsible for electricity generation and transmission of the existing ten power stations that Syria owns. It will manage the two new power stations at Deir Ali and Deir Azzour.