Egypt is looking towards the private sector to help it increase total investments in electricity and renewables to EGP 136.3 bn this fiscal year, up from EGP 72.6 bn in FY 2024-2025, according to a statement from the Planning Ministry. Under the plan, the private sector will account for 27% of total investment, with the public sector investing the remaining 73%.

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The move would push electricity and renewables’ contribution to GDP to EGP 285 bn for the fiscal year, followed by annual growth of 15-20% to reach EGP 430 bn by the fiscal year 2028-29. Similarly, the country plans to increase the two sectors’ output to EGP 655.6 bn and then to EGP 984.4 bn by the fiscal year 2028-29.

Renewables are set to play an important role in achieving these goals, with the government looking to increase the share of renewable energy in the energy mix by eight percentage points this fiscal year to 20%. Solar and wind will drive this, with a targeted capacity of 6.5 GW by the end of June. A capacity of 2 GW of renewable energy was added this year, which in turn helped reduce electricity consumption from fossil fuels, a government source told EnterpriseAM.

The government seeks to support private sector participation in renewables by providing land, permits, and technical and financial support, with funding targeted through local and international partners. Expanding renewable energy activities will reduce the cost of electricity production and support Egypt’s transformation into a regional energy hub, our source told us.

Expanding electricity coverage nationwide to 99.8% by the end of FY 2025-2026 is also a priority, with Egypt now fully covered by electricity, except for some remote areas far from urban zones, such as a number of tourist areas in South Sinai, our source said. Converting overhead lines to underground cables and cutting electricity losses from 19.6% to 16.5% is also part of the plan to improve the grid.

One way it will do this is by upgrading transmission and distribution networks — including major transformer stations. A project to expand transformer stations in Tenth of Ramadan and Zahraa Nasr City is currently underway.

Unpredictable global fuel prices should push the public and private sectors to invest more in renewables, which could help significantly lessen our energy import bill, a government source told EnterpriseAM. The government has already made progress on that front, cutting its petroleum product import bill by USD 3.5 bn last fiscal year — a result in part driven by increased electricity generation from renewable sources.

The cost of grid interconnection remains an obstacle to diversifying investments and developing new projects, one of the sources told us, even though Egypt already has extensive plans and allocated lands for renewable energy projects, along with major existing investments and further projects planned in the coming period to increase the share of renewables.

Financing is also one of the biggest obstacles in the implementation of more projects, especially in the wind and solar power sectors, the source added. “We are currently in talks with several international partners to secure the necessary funding, in addition to providing government guarantees for the electricity sector as part of agreements with investors through public-private partnerships,” they said.

But new incentives are on the way to support the sector, including introducing a set of procedural facilitations and tax and custom breaks on equipment, one of the government sources told us. This will support upcoming projects such as power plants and transformer stations offered up under the PPP framework, they added.

Your top infrastructure stories for the week:

  • The Energos Winter floating storage and regasification unit is abackup in case Israel — once again — cuts off gas supplies. The newly operational 450 mcf/d Energos Winter is currently only running at a fraction of its capacity, processing only 70 mcf/d from its berth in Damietta.
  • Vodafone Egypt has carried out the world’s first test of a commercial 50Gbps microwave link, which it did in partnership with Huawei Egypt and under the supervision of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority.
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