Page 5 - AfrElec Week 41

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec
Morocco and Tunisia.
The company has agreed to set up a factory
at Ain Sukhna for manufacturing the turbine blades.
Green potential
Egypt has considerable green potential, with the $2.8bn, 1,465-MW Benban solar complex leading the government’s efforts to develop solar power.
To date fossil fuels continue to dominate power generation, with renewables having accounted for just 3.5 TWh of generating output in 2018, or 1.75%, compared with 160.9 TWh (80%) from gas and 13.5 TWh (6.75%) from hydro, according to government figures.
Including fuel oil, fossil fuels supply 90% of the country’s power needs, while CO2 emissions have reached 224.2mn tonnes and are rising.
Egypt currently has 50,000 MW of installed capacity. This includes 2,400 MW of hydro, 1,000 MW of wind and 170 MW of solar.
Alongside renewables, Egypt is also develop- ing 4,800 MW of nuclear power together with Russia at El Dabaa, and is implementing 14,500 MW of gas-fired capacity in conjunction with Siemens.
Siemens is also advising the government on digitising grid operations and billing in a bid to improve energy efficiency and the resilience and sustainability of supply infrastructure.
Cairo also intends to eliminate tariff subsidies by 2022, and instead have cost-reflective tariffs. As well as reducing government expenditure, cost-reflective tariffs aim to stimulate investment in power projects by private investors.
Report
Egypt’s major wind tie-up with Siemens Gamesa reflects the company’s confidence that wind power could account for 34% of global electricity output by 2040, up from 4% at present, according to a KPMG report commissioned by the Span- ish-based company.
Crucially, wind has the potential to deliver 23% of the reduction in carbon emissions needed by 2050 to meet the IPCC’s climate change and temperature reduction goals.
This amounts to 5.6bn tonnes, equivalent to the current annual emissions of the world’s 80 most polluting cities.
This reduction would save up to 5mn lives per year, reduce health-related costs by up to $3.2tn per year and provide 3mn jobs by 2050.
The report identified that environmental risks for investment projects over a ten-year horizon had increased by 60%. This means that climate change and extreme weather are seen as the gravest threats to the success of both energy investment projects and global society at large.
In terms of money, investment in wind developments must rise from $110bn per year at present to $200bn per year in order to meet these targets.
The report also found that wind power could save 16bn cubic metres of water by 2030, replacing the water requirements of fossil fuel generation.
Wind also has the potential to increase access to power across Africa via its use in both utili- ty-scale projects and micro-grid ventures in both rural and urban areas.
Globally, the report said that 1bn people had to access to power, and 2.7bn were unable to use clean fuels and modern technology for cooking.
Siemens’ involvement in Egypt, and its plans to build 1,000 MW of wind farms in the country, may play some part in pushing forward wind farms, but it will take regulatory support and a high appetite for risk from private investors if wind is to achieve the targets called for in the report.
In the context of Africa, Egypt has enough infrastructure to support large utility-scale wind farms, but across the continent micro-grids in areas without grid connections will be the key technological solution that can connect people to power and help meet rising demand.™
Week 41 16•October•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P5