Egypt will allow offshore international arbitration in contracts for the second round of its solar power Feed-in-Tarrif (FiT) scheme, the Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker said. The move comes after international lenders had pulled out funds of an earlier phase when Egypt refused to allow for international arbitration in FiT contracts. Egypt also plans to slash the FiT rate to 7.8 cents/ kWh in phase two from 13 cents/kWh in phase one to plants with 500 KW- 20 MW capacity and to 8.4 cents / kWh from 14 cents/kWh to those with 20-50 MW capacity. In 2014, Egypt announced extensive plans to develop renewable energy, originally targeting 4.3 GW of wind and solar projects to be installed over three years, including 1.8 GW solar park in Upper Egypt to be developed for USD3bn and operated under a FiT scheme, which piqued investor interest due to its competitive rates. Phase two will be initially exclusive to qualified investors that had applied to phase one and it will open up to new investors if the accepted bids do not meet the targeted capacity additions.  (Reuters, Al Mal)