June 11, 2015 Egypt has plans of harnessing the abundance of the sun’s rays into solar energy as the country’s leadership ventures into efforts that will boost renewable energy generation in the country. Currently, only one percent of the country’s energy needs are powered by renewable energy with Egypt relying heavily on gas and oil fuel. One of those efforts is the construction of solar-and wind-power plants to add a combined capacity of 4.3 gigawatt hours to the country’s grid, and the introduction of a new feed-in tariff system to serve as incentive for private investments.
Last month, Access Power announced their deal with Egypt’s government to build a 65 megawatt solar power plant and also held talks for a wind power scheme that would generate 50 MW of power.
The discussion came up at an event at the Swiss Embassy in cooperation with the Swiss-Egyptian Business Association. The conference focussed on the Solar plane, Solar Impulse 2, currently travelling around the world only using solar energy.
Egypt’s Vice Chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Authority for Studies and Technical Affairs, Omneya Sabry spoke on progress so far, saying “In the solar projects, we have about 80 megawatt – 20 megawatt each in different areas in Egypt, and those projects were financed in cooperation with international financial institutions.”
Egypt has set the year 2020 as the deadline to cut reliance on natural gas and fuel oil from 90 percent to 62 percent.