Egypt Can Become Energy Gateway to 3 Ancient Continents

Egypt understands that it is at a geographical and geopolitical crossroads. However, it must now seize this opportunity to become an electricity energy hub. If it does, it can become the main gateway for electricity flowing into Europe, Africa, and Asia. If Egypt grasps this chance, it could definitely find a model to grow its economy and make its people prosperous.

Here is why Egypt holds many significant geopolitical keys that will allow it to become the energy gateway to the three ancient continents. The European countries, African countries, and Arab states see Egypt as vital to securing the electricity supply of the three continents.

Meanwhile, Egypt is greatly interested in electrical interconnection and serving as a pivotal center for energy exchange between Arab countries and also the Horn of Africa. In addition to this, the Egyptian government is currently working to take positive steps towards interconnection with Europe through Cyprus and Greece.

Another step to becoming an energy hub is a 3 GW electricity interconnection, which is a cooperative project between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in addition to the first 1.5 GW of the $1.6 billion project, which is expected to be operational in 2023.

Furthermore, Egypt already possesses interconnections with Libya and Jordan, whose combined capacity stands at about 800MW. Libya has a 2,500 MW deficit during peak demand. With the percentage of Libyans enjoying access to electricity having dropped to 67 percent from the pre-civil war level of 81 percent; increased Egyptian electricity exports to Libya could help ameliorate the gap and enhance Cairo’s economic cooperation with its western neighbor.

In line with the government’s energy agenda, Egypt is poised to contribute to the electrification of sub-Saharan Africa where access to electricity averages under 50 percent.

In 2019, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi stated that Egypt was prepared to export approximately 20% of its surplus electricity to African nations.

In this context, Sudan, Egypt’s neighbor to the south, has an access to electricity rate of 60 percent. Egypt and Sudan’s grid connection became operational in April 2020, and will reach 300 MW upon completion. Through Libya and Sudan, Egypt could theoretically export electricity to neighboring countries such as Chad whose 2018 access to electricity rate stood at only 12 %.

What makes Egypt's prospects even more exciting are the latest several projects in the field of overhead lines and transformer stations that have been implemented at the high and high voltages at the level of the Republic.

In recent years, Egypt has built 31 decentralized power plants, mostly solar energy and gas turbine units that are not connected to the national grid, according to a new report issued by the Egyptian government.

The new high voltage stations were added, including 7 500 kV stations. This increased the total capacity by 17.7 percent, and the projects of the three giant production stations (Bani Suef, Burullus, the New Administrative Capital) were connected to 220 and 500 kV, the report stated.

The report also revealed that the lengths of high voltage lines and cables were increased from 29,469 km to 31,84 km, and the capacities of high voltage transformer stations were increased from 95,315 MVA to 112,208 MVA with an increase of 17.7  percent.

In conclusion, Egypt’s current strategy to develop its energy exports has already started to reshape geopolitics from the eastern Mediterranean to Africa and Asia.