Over the past few years, significant progress has been recorded in the electricity sector in Egypt to improve security of energy supply and service reliability. Demand for electricity grew at an average of around 5% over the past 10 years, driven by population growth, urbanization and increasing industrialization. This demand increase has been mostly met by significant public investments in new electricity infrastructure. Indeed, a huge public investment program of USD 17bn in power generation was implemented on fast-track basis starting 2015. The program was successful in turning power supply from a shortage exceeding 6,000 MW in 2014 to about 20,000 MW surplus in 2022. This expansion helped raise total installed capacity from 45,198 MW (2017) to 60,134 MW (2023).

Similarly, large investments in transmission and distribution are under implementation. Given the surplus power generation capacity, the large natural gas discoveries in the Mediterranean and the well-developed gas infrastructure in the country, the “Integrated Sustainable Energy Strategy 2035” seeks to position Egypt as a regional energy hub, by strengthening the regional power and gas interconnections. At the same time, Egypt’s energy mix is still dominated by fossil fuels (202,400 GWh in 2023 vs 26,687 GWh generated from renewable sources). The Government of Egypt is however committed to increasing the share of renewable energy to 42% by 2035.

To realize these targets, the Government of Egypt has been implementing sector reforms to rationalize the subsidized tariffs, improve the financial sustainability of the sector and enhance the governance of the public utilities. As a result, sizable private investments of about USD 3.0bn have been realized in RE projects (wind and solar) in the last few years. Energy efficiency (EE) has also a large potential that remains to be tapped in Egypt, for which the Government is targeting 18% improvement by 2035. Some of the progress made on this front include adoption of the second National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP II); establishment of a dedicated institutional set-up mandated to coordinate, development and implementation of national EE programs; and studying options for establishing dedicated financing mechanism(s) for EE projects.

Source: Egypt Country Strategy Paper 2022-2026, and AEP data

• The laws governing the electricity sector in Egypt are the:
• Electricity Law No. 87 of 2015 and its ER. These provide for the legal framework governing the electricity sector in general.
• Renewable Energy Law No. 203 of 2014 (Renewable Energy Law). This creates Egypt's first feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme to promote the production of electricity from renewable energy sources.
• Law No. 12 of 1976. This established the Electricity Authority of Egypt, which was converted into the EEHC by Law No. 164 of 2000. The EEHC is a company that owns the EETC and various electricity production and distribution companies.
• Law No. 13 of 1976. This established the Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA).
• Law No. 102 of 1986. This established the NREA.
• Law No. 18 of 1998. This regulates electricity distribution companies, power plants and transmission grids.
• Law No. 7 of 2010 and its executive regulations (Nuclear Activities Law). These govern nuclear and radiation-related activities in Egypt.

• Please click here and here to read more