Solar And Wind Resources Of Egypt Key To The Country’s Energy Transition – Report

The recent gas discoveries of Egypt have helped lower the country’s carbon intensity, allowing it to become a net energy exporter and also enabling it to expand its renewable capabilities.

Egypt’s National Climate Change Strategy 2050 (NCCS) was published ahead of COP27, which will be held between November 6-18. It was revealed that Egypt’s fiscal year 2019-2020 saw 12% of electricity from renewable sources, 7.6% coming from hydroelectric dams, and the rest via solar and wind.

According to a report from the UAE-funded Middle East Institute, Egypt is “proving the dogma natural gas and renewables are in a zero-sum competition”.

According to an August 2022 U.S. Government report, Egypt has a long-standing goal to produce 20% electricity from renewables by 2022 and 42% by the year 2035. In that time, solar power would be 27%, wind energy 14% and hydropower 2%.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) report, stated that Egypt has a wealth of renewable energy resources and a high potential for deployment. It also claimed that Egypt could produce 53% of its electricity by 2030 from renewable sources.

ANRPC’s paper highlights other obstacles to Egypt’s achievement of its renewables targets, which include high costs of building eco-friendly power plants as well as declining hydroelectricity production.

“Renewable projects in construction can add another 1% by the end of 2022. This is still far less than the target share of 20% by 2022. It questions the long-term (2035 target),” it says.

Reuters reported that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, (EBRD), pledged $1 billion to Egypt for renewable projects.

The World Bank funded Egypt’s $4 billion Benban Solar Park, which will include 32 solar power plants. Together they will have a total capacity of 1.5 GW. According to the ANRPC paper, other projects will increase Egypt’s solar power to 1.8 GW.

Egypt is not only building large-scale photovoltaic, concentrated solar power stations, wind farms, and bioenergy plants but also small-scale decentralised projects like rooftop solar plants and waste plants.

Egypt wants to be a major producer in green hydrogen. This hydrogen, unlike brown or grey hydrogen, is produced using solar- and wind-powered electrolysers. These split water and are carbon-free. According to Wood Mackenzie, Egypt’s hydrogen project capacity was approximately 1.5 million tonnes per year as of June 30.