The Government of Egypt is committed to increasing the share of renewables in the electricity mix to 42% by 2035. The country’s NDC has led to the adoption of enabling measures to this end, including schemes to attract public and private investments under the Renewable Energy Law. Despite these supporting factors, the total estimated solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed in the industrial sector remains only around 70 MW. Of this, less than 1MW is installed by industrial small and medium enterprises (SMEs). With national installed capacity of ~60GW, and industry consuming around 27% of national electric energy from the carbon-intensive national grid (which accounts for 12% of national GHG emissions), stakeholders, experts, and market studies agree that solar PV for industrial SMEs have the potential to be unlocked via tailored measures.
The main barriers for a sector-wide transformation are (1) limited financial feasibility and high perceived risk of investment and financing of PV in industrial SMEs; (2) a diluted knowledge base on feasibility and risks of on-grid PV for industrial SMEs, leading to limited and costly decision support for beneficiaries and financiers; (3) weak evidence-based decision-making and stakeholder engagement, as well as (4) the perceived complexity of regulatory arrangements.
Egypt In-PV aims to unlock the potential in the industrial SME sector by removing the underlying barriers mentioned above, and operationalising an enabling framework that allows solar PV business models to become financially self-sustainable. More specifically, the NSP’s objective is to support transformation to market-driven widescale deployment of on-grid solar PV in industrial SMEs through the installation of an exemplary 100+25MW, and the establishment of a dedicated Technical Assistance & Finance Facility (TAFF). TAFF will implement and support enabling measures to drive scalability and replicability in industrial and other sectors during and after Egypt In-PV’s implementation.
The NSP intends to demonstrate that public and private finance is leveraged, innovative financial solutions are viable, and enabling frameworks are in place for enhancing: (1) GHG emission reduction (the project aims to mitigate approximately 311,000 tonnes of CO2e over the five-year duration) (2) the implementation of the national renewable energy strategy and the NDC, (3) market development, including increased competitiveness, low-emission/modernised production, green job creation, energy security, etc., through replicable and scalable PV deployment in the industrial sector.