Egypt’s vast wind and solar resources key to COP27 host’s energy transition

Egypt’s vast wind and solar resources key to COP27 host’s energy transition

Egypt’s gas discoveries over the past decade have lowered the power sector’s carbon intensity and enabled the country to become net energy exporter while also expanding its renewables capacity.

Ahead of staging COP27 from November 6-18, Egypt published its National Climate Change Strategy 2050 (NCCS). This revealed that renewables provided 12% of Egypt’s electricity in fiscal year 2019-2020, with 7.6% from hydroelectric dams and the remainder via solar and wind.

Egypt is “disproving the dogma that natural gas and renewables are in a zero-sum competition”, states a report by the UAE-funded Middle East Institute. Egypt will use its hosting of COP27 to give greater voice to the wishes of many African countries that want to up gas consumption to expand electrification across the continent despite opposition from Europe, the report states.

Egypt’s longstanding target, set in 2016, is to produce 20% of electricity from renewables in 2022 and 42% by 2035 when solar would provide 27%, wind 14%, and hydropower 2%, according to an August 2022 U.S. government report.

“Egypt … enjoys an abundance of renewable energy resources with high deployment

potential, including hydropower, wind, solar and biomass,” the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) wrote in a report claiming Egypt could generate 53% of its