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Egypt's eco-friendly power aspirations face grid difficulty

Egypt wishes to accelerate the arrangement of renewable resource that might reduce electrical power shortages and supply green power to Europe, but faces difficulties in moneying updates to its grid and unlocking investments for brand-new wind and solar plants.

Authorities promoted Egypt's potential in wind and solar power in addition to green hydrogen at a two-day Egypt-EU investment conference in Cairo at the weekend, hoping to protect funding and benefit from Europe's efforts to diversify and decarbonise its energy materials.

I believe this market represents the future for both sides, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly informed the conference, adding that Egypt should make renewable parts such as solar panels, wind turbines and electrolysers.

Electrical Energy Minister Mohamed Shaker said Egypt was evaluating its tidy energy targets and would go for a 58% share of renewables in power generation by 2040.

He stated that considering that 2014, Egypt had spent more than 116 billion Egyptian pounds ($ 2.42 billion at existing exchange rates) on upgrading its transmission network, as it looked to expand into renewables.

We are ready with the facilities, stated Shaker, adding that the government was using a number of rewards to investors and could get approvals from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to raise the optimum heights for wind turbines from the ground to the pointer of their blades to 220 metres from 150 metres.

Expansion of installed sustainable capability mainly plateaued after the inauguration of the major Benban solar plant in 2019, according to information from Egypt's New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), putting in doubt an earlier target of 42% of power generation through renewables by 2030.

Less than 12% of Egypt's set up capability of almost 60GW is from renewables, the data programs.

A lot of power is produced by gas, and a gas lack has contributed to everyday power cuts that were extended to three hours recently, as well as causing interruptions at fertilizer and chemicals factories.

Egypt has signed many MoUs for renewable energy and green hydrogen development given that hosting the police 27 environment top in 2022. It has aspirations to export electricity to regional neighbours, as well as to Europe through a subsea cable television to Greece.

However experts state Egypt requires to adjust and extend its grid to the sites of potential projects to make them practical.

We have a lack in fuel today which indicates we have the power cuts, which makes more renewables the reasonable method forward ... but these need to be connected (to the grid) and this is where the difficulty is, stated Hamza al-Assad, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean environment technique head for the European Bank for Restoration and Development (EBRD), which is assisting financing Egypt's energy transition.

When those connections, or transmission lines, might be developed is unclear, partially since of a cap on public financial investments imposed this year to include Egypt's heavy financial obligation burden, individuals with knowledge of the sector stated. An Egyptian cabinet spokesman did not right away react to an ask for remark.

Grid advancement would cost billions in the longer term if major scaling up and the requirements of green hydrogen is included, though needs this year would be a portion of this, said Heike Harmgart, EBRD's handling director for the area.

(source: Reuters)