You get up within the small hours, the air is thick, and the fan has stopped. Or you might be midway by way of a web-based class, a gathering, or a examine session, and the display goes black. That was the soundtrack of final summer season for a lot of properties throughout Egypt, as scheduled energy cuts moved from hearsay to routine.
The sample had a trigger. In the summertime of 2024, and once more in 2025, a fierce heatwave hit Egypt, placing a toll on electrical energy. The federal government in June 2024 resorted to three-hour power cuts whereas it scrambled for additional gas. That is known as “load-shedding”, a scheduled switch-off of electrical energy to save lots of gas.
To plug the hole of gas scarcity, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in June 2024 that Egypt wanted USD 1.18 billion worth of fuel (EGP 56.6 billion). Officers stated the cuts would stop in July 2024 as soon as additional fuel shipments arrived. The message was easy: when fuel is tight, lights go off or the gas invoice jumps.
Why photo voltaic is the sensible reply
Egypt nonetheless makes most of its electrical energy from pure fuel. When native fuel falls brief, the nation buys Liquefied Pure Fuel (LNG) from abroad. Egypt is negotiating LNG provides with Qatar, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia, and has signed offers with Shell and Whole Energies for cargoes in early 2025. In 2025, the U.S. Power Info Administration (EIA) reported that Egypt is shopping for extra LNG and chartering three extra FSRUs (floating terminals that flip LNG again into fuel) to cowl demand. The Cupboard additionally stated Egypt would import LNG from July 2025 to June 2026 to get by way of the subsequent summer season. These steps preserve the grid working, however they’re costly in contrast with constructing extra native photo voltaic.
The strategic reply is to lift the share of unpolluted energy. In 2023, the federal government revealed its plans for renewables to produce 42 percent of Egypt’s electrical energy by 2030. At present, renewables provide about 11.5 percent of Egypt’s electrical energy, as per the newest authorities determine reiterated publicly at COP27 in late 2024, which means the nation would want to roughly quadruple the share of unpolluted energy within the combine by 2030 to fulfill its aim.
In late 2024, Madbouly called for world finance to improve the grid. Hitting the 42 percent goal means including massive photo voltaic and wind crops and in addition connecting smaller methods on rooftops, faculties, and companies.
By Could 2025, Egypt had about 7.7 gigawatts (GW) of renewables (photo voltaic, wind, and hydro mixed). A 12 months earlier, the nation had roughly 7.4 GW; 4.6 GW of wind and photo voltaic, plus 2.8 GW of hydropower. In plain phrases: complete clear capability grew year-on-year, even after the large wave of photo voltaic building at Benban earlier within the decade. The Benban Solar Park close to Aswan stays the anchor of Egypt’s photo voltaic fleet, collectively producing about 1.5–1.65 GW for the nationwide grid.
As for newer initiatives, on 15 June 2025, Egypt secured financing for a 1-GW photo voltaic plant with Scatec, the biggest photo voltaic developer in Egypt. Collectively, they signed a USD 600 million (EGP 28.8 billion) funding and a power-purchase settlement for 900 MW of wind price USD 1 billion (EGP 48 billion).
Smaller methods matter as effectively. Properties, outlets, and campuses can join underneath net metering, which suggests you employ your solar energy first and ship any additional to the grid for credit in your invoice. They’re best for customers with important daytime consumption and in tariff bands the place daytime charges are larger. The regulator’s current tariff table, in drive since 1 September 2024, exhibits what you pay per kilowatt-hour on every band, so heavy daytime customers (workshops, clinics, faculties) can see their seemingly payback extra clearly.
Why Egypt’s solar provides photo voltaic an edge
Egypt can also be a naturally sunny place to tune extra to this pure useful resource. Nationwide and World Financial institution-backed instruments present strong photo voltaic assets: round 3,000 hours of sunshine a 12 months in lots of areas, and high solar radiation from the Nile Valley to Higher Egypt. Extra solar hours and stronger radiation imply every panel can generate extra electrical energy.
But, there may be nonetheless a bottleneck to resolve: the grid. Consider the grid because the “roads and bridges” of electrical energy: the large pylons (high-voltage strains) and substations that carry energy from the place it’s made (Benban in Higher Egypt, wind within the Gulf of Suez) to the place it’s used (Cairo, the Delta, industrial zones). At present, these “roads” are busy, and a few stretches are too slender for the additional visitors from new photo voltaic and wind crops. That’s the reason even with a number of sunshine and prepared buyers, initiatives might be delayed till there may be house on the strains.
First, lower than 12 percent of Egypt’s almost 60 GW of put in capability was renewable as of mid-2024, which means most energy nonetheless got here from fuel and older crops. Second, the nationwide renewables complete did rise 0.3 GW year-on-year, from mid-2024 Mid 2025; nevertheless, to achieve the desired 42 p.c by 2030, much more new initiatives have to be plugged in faster than the infrastructure can at present cater.
Officers say they’re fast-tracking clean-energy connections by way of the Below Egypt’s Nexus for Water, Food and Energy (NWFE) platform so precedence initiatives can feed energy into the community earlier than peak summer season demand.
To make that attainable, the European Financial institution for Reconstruction and Improvement’s (EBRD) is in parallel financing a grid-reinforcement venture. A brand new 500 kV substation in Cairo and about 200 km of recent 500 kV strains, which can transfer photo voltaic from Higher Egypt, the place it’s sunny, and wind from the coastal space into areas of main hundreds.
The financial institution’s documents describe the substation as “essential for the soundness of the community” and say the improve is instantly linked to closing the Shoubra El-Kheima fuel plant with out risking provide. In easy phrases; extra high-voltage strains along with larger substations end in extra room for photo voltaic and wind to move, fewer bottlenecks, and fewer want for emergency gas in sizzling months. With out these wires and substations, new photo voltaic fields can’t ship their energy to properties or outlets, even when the panels are already within the desert.
Put merely, final 12 months’s blackouts confirmed the price of counting on fuel alone. This 12 months’s plan is to purchase time with imported gas whereas including extra photo voltaic and wind, massive and small, and strengthening the grid that carries them.
Reaching the planned 42 percent by 2030 now is determined by protecting that construct on schedule and plugging every venture right into a grid that’s prepared for it.