Egypt Takes Serious Steps to Convert Waste into Electric Energy

Egypt is set to establish its first factory to generate electricity from biogas in Sadat City.

The new factory will annually convert 85,000 tons of cattle dung into one megawatt/hour of electricity that will be connected to the national electricity grid.

It will also produce more than 80,000 tons of high-quality organic fertilizer, proven to be effective in restoring agricultural soil fertility and doubling its productivity.

The factory is expected to reduce greenhouse emissions by about 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

Moreover, Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad inked a contract for the implementation of a project for financing, designing, constructing, exploiting, maintaining and transferring ownership of the municipal solid waste into an electric energy plant in Abu Rawash in Giza Governorate.

Additionally, the country intends to increase the supply of electricity generated from renewable sources to 20% by 2022 and 42% by 2035, with wind providing 14 percent, hydropower 2%, and solar  25% by 2035.

The government has recently allocated an area of about 7,845 square kilometers in the Gulf of Suez region and the Nile Banks for NREA to implement additional wind energy projects.

In 2017, the Ras Ghareb wind farm project was launched near the Gulf of Suez (approximately 30 km north-west of Ras Ghareb) in order to produce 262.5MW, and supply power to nearly 500,000 households.