Al Ahram Weekly, by Mai Samih
Excerpt, read on Egypt: Generating solar energy at home
A national project is installing solar-energy plants in residential areas of Egypt to help households generate their own electricity.
After the Industrial Revolution, the dominant source of energy worldwide became fossil fuels, with horse-drawn carts being replaced by cars fuelled by petrol and furnaces replaced by electric or gas ovens. But although this was a practical shift for human beings, it became catastrophic for the environment.
According to a 2019 World Bank report, in 2016, the air pollution in Greater Cairo alone was 66 PM (micrograms of particulate matter per cubic metre), or more than six times the recommended limit set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of 10 PM.
Some 35 per cent of this is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The figure has a dangerous effect on human health because the more carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions there are, the less the quality of the air, contributing to respiratory problems. CO2 is also a major greenhouse gas responsible for global warming, and this could eventually make the planet uninhabitable.
To reduce CO2 emissions and air pollution, the world needs to shift towards low-carbon sources of energy such as renewables that will play a key role in the decarbonisation of energy systems in the years to come. Some countries have switched to renewable sources of energy, like Canada which produced the most renewable energy in the world in 2019 followed by Sweden.
Egypt is switching to renewable energy by 17 per cent per year, the highest rate in Africa.
According to statistics issued by the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, renewable energy plants, especially solar-energy plants and wind plants, are producing more and more electricity in Egypt. This type of investment has also been “a life jacket” for the Egyptian economy over the past couple of years. It now has the potential to provide the country with double its electricity needs, up to 58.3 Gigawatts (GW) compared to the 31.4 GW produced in the past.
Examples of such projects are the Gabal Al-Zait wind project (2016-2019) and the Banyan solar-energy plant (2018-2019). Both have huge productive capacity. Laws were also issued in 2015 to increase investment in the field of renewable energy, with the aim of encouraging people to decrease their dependence on non-renewable energy. They also encouraged private-sector companies to produce solar-energy kits that could be used by individuals to turn them into “productive consumers”, with the government buying the surplus electricity they produced.
Various initiatives have been working on providing Egyptian households with solar energy. The Small-Scale Grid-Connected Solar System is a national project initiated by the Industrial Modernisation Centre (IMC) affiliated to the Ministry of Trade and Industry and by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) with the aim of generating electricity using small, decentralised, grid-connected systems in households, hotels, public places, commercial areas, and industrial buildings. The project also aims at providing training opportunities for technical staff and technical consultation and support for new markets as well as encouraging local production of the technology in Egypt.
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