Enel Green Power CEO Francesco Venturini at the event promoted by RES4MED and the Arab League’s Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. By means of competitive bids and incentives, the MENA region’s leading country provides a favourable development framework but needs to overcome historical barriers
“A step change in the deployment of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency solutions in the Mediterranean”. This is not only the title of the workshop promoted by RES4MED on September 28 in Cairo, but is also Egypt’s promise as regards the energy context of countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
New renewable sources and new hydrocarbon offshore fields are hot button issues in the ‘energy debate’ in Egypt, whose regulations are evolving and which is called on to efficiently integrate its electricity system with the contribution of institutions, investors and businesses.
The event organised by RES4MED and the Arab League’s Regional CenterforRenewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE) was attended by the major public and private actors that operate in the field of renewables in Egypt. The event aims at producing a debate on the current investment opportunities and collecting the viewpoints of the various players within the Italian and global industrial supply chain. The opening speech was given by Enel Green Power’s CEO and RES4MED President Francesco Venturini, who recalled the evolution beyond expectations achieved by renewable energy over the last ten years and the significant prospects generated by the mix of wind and solar incentives, competitive bids and merchant schemes, which combine to make a favourable framework for the development of renewables in Egypt.
In Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, investments in renewable energy are driven by the growing competitiveness of the most dynamic technologies – solar and wind power - and by the need to create jobs for a young and rapidly growing population. Enel Green Power’s CEO analysed the issue of the barriers that hinder the development of renewables, including, on the one hand, the limited experience of local banks in funding renewable projects, and on the other, fuel subsidies. Venturini highlighted the important responsibility of local governments in removing political barriers, adding that Enel Green Power looks to Egypt with interest due to a positive mix of factors: a country with 90 million inhabitants, a dynamic economy, a rapidly growing energy demand, a favourable policy framework supporting renewables and abundant wind and solar resources.
Egypt has launched a robust incentive scheme in view of installing 4,300MW by 2017 and the commitment by Egypt’s network operator, the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC), to purchase the energy produced by the solar PV and wind plants that will be granted the incentives (through 25- and 20-year bilateral agreements, respectively). Mohamed SalahElsobki, executive director of Egypt’s New & Renewable Energy Authority (NREA), described the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) programme and the bidding mechanism, which are accelerating the market’s opening.
Three new tenders have been announced by the NREA and EETC in August for global and local private investors, set to assign 200MW of solar PV, 250MW of wind and 50MW of thermodynamic solar, based on the competitive bidding model. The considerable attention garnered by these tenders implies that new record-breaking assignments are set to confirm the trend that has been ongoing since the beginning of this year.
