Hydro towers in Egypt (Photo: Reuters)
Egypt will fix feed-in tariffs for renewable energy in order to encourage private investors to pour money into the underdeveloped sector in Egypt.
"Feed-in tariffs will be implemented soon but I cannot tell exactly when," Hafez Salmawi, managing director of Egyptian Electric Utility and Consumer Protection Regulatory, told Ahram Online.
Hafez explains that in the first phase, the government will fix a special price for investors that will then be reflected on consumer prices.
In a speech Saturday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that electricity production and distribution were not developed enough to keep up with consumption.
He estimated that Egypt needs 2,500 megawatts annually for the next five years to meet rising demands, at a total cost of $12.5 billion.
Egypt has witnessed frequent electricity cuts during the last few years, but the crisis has significantly increased this year, with some Cairo districts seeing up to six blackouts a day during peak hours this summer.
Experts and officials have blamed a rise in consumption, a lack of maintenance on the power grid and a fuel shortage.
The government raised electricity tariffs for households and the commercial sector in July as part of efforts to reduce its costly energy subsidy bill and – it says – cure the problem of blackouts.
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