Both last and current years could be called years of renewable energy in Egypt. In 2014 Egypt announced its own Feed-in Tariff, FiT, scheme for both wind energy projects and solar Photovoltaic, PV, applications. Egypt is targeting 4300 MW from both technologies.
In March 2015, the Egyptian Economic Cooperation Conference has been held for three days in Sharm El-Sheikh. Total amount for both contracts and MOUs worth around US$ 60 billion, around 30% out of this amount has been allocated for power sector.
Since ten years ago, electricity demand is growing faster than the expected rates. Power cuts hit both households and industry sectors; fertilizers and cement (http://www.ask-mag.com). The government has taken steps to attract private investments to the sector, setting feed-in tariffs for renewable energy and issuing a new electricity law that liberalizes electricity production and transmission.
Both ACWA Power International of Saudi Arabia and Masdar of UAE will also invest US$ 2.4 billion to construct a number of power plants, including solar plants; 1.5 GW, and a wind energy project, 500 MW.
In the same context, NREA as a national leader in developing large-scale renewable energy projects will move forward to implement more renewable energy projects and paving the way towards more robust renewable energy projects. Within the last few weeks, NREA signed two large wind energy projects with total capacity 340 MW.
Also, through cooperation with United Arab Emirate a 10 MW PV power plant has been inaugurated in Siwa Oasis on March 5. It is planned to electrifying around 250 remote villages in different governorates in Egypt by both stand – alone PV systems and small PV power plants, each with the capacity 120 KW. Meanwhile, around 20 remote cities will be electrified by large PV power plants, each with total capacity 37 MW,
In addition, around 300 MW PV Plant Projects are under developing through Build Own Operate, BOO, and Governmental agreements will be installed in Aswan Governorate and Hurghada.