Cairo, (IINA) – EFG Hermes, an investment bank in the Middle East and North Africa region, stated on Sunday that Wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) in Egypt are under the feed-in-tariff scheme, and it presents an investment opportunity of at least $6 billion through 2018, Saudi Gazette reported.
The comments were made in the build-up to the World Future Energy Summit.
Egypt is focusing on renewable energy as a viable and effective source to add to the gas-dominated energy mix in order to face growing energy demands. Egypt’s Renewable Energy Authority aims to generate 20 percent of its power from renewables by 2020.
According to EFG Hermes, Egypt will need to add about 8 gigawatts, foreseen to be split between 5.5 gigawatts of wind power, and 2.5 gigawatts of solar power.
As a result, EFG Hermes predicts a debt and equity investment opportunity of approximately $6 billion to $7 billion for Egypt’s feed-in-tariff renewable energy program to 2018.
In these challenging times, renewable energy is increasingly serving as an innovative solution for Middle East and North Africa countries in order to rebuild, reconstruct, and drive diversified economic growth.
Renewable energy’s low cost of production, reduced environmental impact, and ease of implementation in rugged and demanding situations make renewables the best power source for Egypt’s future.
“We are bullish in the short- to medium-term on Egypt’s renewable energy projects. But it’s a matter of properly executing the first feed-in-tariff wave. The Government’s implementation of the regulatory framework is one of the biggest challenges. Once the right implementation plan is in place, then it will be easy for international lenders to be fully comfortable with Egypt’s renewables sector”, said Bakr Abdel-Wahab, Managing Director of Infrastructure Private Equity at EFG Hermes.
“There is a lot of focus on investors and developers, but we have to remember that 60 to 75 percent of the funding will be via debt from international and multi-lateral institutions. All the necessary structural changes need to be in place to assist aggressive debt financing”, he added.
Bakr will address financing renewables at both the Egypt Energy Forum and the World Future Energy Summit 2016.
0 Comments