Egypt's renewable energy push

Emissions damage the Pyramids

The World Bank has come under pressure from Egypt this week, as 25 industry leaders from the country all demanded from the organisation one change to the region's power systems - help incorporate renewable energy.

At a meeting on energy consultation, the industry leaders said that it was imperative for the World Bank to fund renewable energy projects and to also provide technical assistance to the Egyptian government.

Currently 99 percent of Egypt's population has access to electricity serving more than 12 million customers with reliable generation, transmission, and distribution systems, but it is hoped that the World Bank could make renewable energy more bankable, by urging governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and start subsidising renewable energy.

Combating pollution

Egypt's pollution woes have gotten worse in recent months, with pollutants damaging their most famous assets. It was reported in April that pollution from all over the country has been damaging the Pyramids more than four millennia of weathering ever had.

The nearby (literally 30 metres away) town of Nazlet as-Samaan ravages the monuments daily with clouds of airborne pollution as tourists flock to see the Great Pyramids. Some days, it is said you can barely see the mighty structures through the smog. To combat this, Egypt has been trying hard to diversify its electrical power production.

Taking a leaf out of Abu Dhabi's book with projects such as Masdar City, their zero-carbon metropolis, Egypt has been in talks with the state-owned clean energy firm Masdar to help fund a solar power plant along the eastern Red Sea coast.

Masdar, along with three other unnamed European companies, is being courted to aid in the construction of a US$1 billion solar power plant. Currently, there is speculation that the plant will be constructed in Kureimat in 65 thousand square metres of the Egyptian desert.

Abd El Rahman Salah El Din, Chairman of Nat's Renewable Energy Authority, Egypt, said: "We have many capabilities. We have a huge desert, we have human resources, we have clouds only about nine or ten days a year, and our sun projection is very high because we are in the sun belt."

Egypt is not the only North African country to turn to solar power to cut costs and emissions. Morocco has revealed plans for a giant US$9 billion solar energy project, spread across five power sites.

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Masdar City: A carbon-neutral metropolis | Egypt's solar power plans | Does Africa lack renewable energy regulation?

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