Government official explains increase in Egypt’s electricity outages

Government official explains increase in Egypt’s electricity outages

Government spokesperson Sameh al-Khashen has revealed the reason behind the increase in the length of electricity outages across Egypt which began on Saturday, according to a report by the Sky News website.

Egyptian media reports indicated that the government recently increased the length of outages to two hours per day or more in some areas, up from one hour.

This ongoing crisis was first exacerbated by the summer heat, which led to increased power consumption, and by a shortage of fuel for power plants compounded by Egypt’s foreign exchange challenges.

In a statement on Sunday, al-Khashen explained that the increase in outages was due to, “The significant increase in temperatures compared to the same period last year, which in turn led to a sharp increase in electricity consumption, with a decrease in the energy generated from new and renewable sources (wind, solar, and water) in the same period compared to last year.”

He said that this “Resulted in an increase in gas consumption to levels that exceeded normal consumption rates, compared to consumption in the same period last year.”

The increase in electricity consumption from gas coincided with a decrease in the amount of gas imported from outside Egypt from 800 million cubic feet of