Monday, March 20, 2017

Egypt moves from electricity deficit to sufficiency

The opening of three ma­jor power plants in March was the latest in Egypt's efforts to end its electric­ity shortage crisis.


"Huge work is being done in this country to end the problem," said Gamal al-Qaluibi, a power engi­neering professor at Cairo Universi­ty. "In less than two years, the gov­ernment managed to end electrical power shortages and even pave the road for surpluses."

When they are operating fully in 2018 as expected, the three electri­cal power plants, one in the central province of Beni Suef and the oth­ers in the new capital being built on the outskirts of Cairo, will produce 14,000 megawatts of electric­ity every year.

In 2013, Egypt produced 24,000 MW but 29,000 MW were needed to bring light to all households, make factory machines run, power equipment at hospitals and bring energy to farmland.

The government was actively asking the public to economize on electricity consumption, turn off air conditioning and do without half of the light bulbs at home. However, consumption rationaliza­tion did not reduce daily outages, which sometimes brought hospital equipment to a standstill.

Instead of addressing the prob­lem, then-President Muhammad Morsi blamed his opponents for deliberately cutting electricity to anger the public.

When Abdel Fattah al-Sisi became president in mid-2014, he learnt the lesson from Morsi's failure to deal with the crisis. Sisi's plan to prevent the outages included the construc­tion of eight massive power plants.

The three power plants that opened in March were designed and constructed by the German electronics manufacturing giant Siemens at the cost of $6.4 billion. Each of the plants will produce 4,800 MW of electricity annually at peak operations.

The plants are only a small item on Sisi's plan to achieve electricity sufficiency in Egypt, the Electricity Ministry said.

"Our plan includes a diversifica­tion of electricity sources," said Ayman Hamza, spokesman for the Electricity Ministry. "The plan aims to end electricity outages for good and secure needs for many years to come."
  [upi.com]
20/3/17

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