Egypt

Abstract

With more than 100 million people, Egypt is the largest country in the Arab World in terms of population. Egypt’s rapid population growth has posed a seemingly insurmountable energy challenge to the Egyptian leadership. This challenge manifested itself after the 2011 political uprising in long vehicle lines at gas stations and rolling power blackouts due to insufficient electricity generation capacity, especially in the summer, when cooling energy demand is at its highest. This triggered successive Egyptian governments to take corrective actions. For example, long-standing massive energy subsidies are now being gradually phased out and large investments are being pumped into increasing traditional and renewable power generation capacity. In 2022, Egypt’s generation capacity is almost twice its peak load, prompting another problem: an electricity oversupply.