Egypt on right track towards green, sustainable energy transition: EBRD’s Hennerkes

CAIRO - 21 July 2023: Maya Hennerkes, the Director for Green Financial Systems at the Climate Strategy and Delivery Department of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), said that Egypt is on the right track towards a green and sustainable energy transition.

In exclusive statements to the Egyptian state’s news agency MENA on Friday, Hennerkes lauded the "NWFE" Program, which aims to promote eco-friendly projects with respect to the National Climate Change Strategy 2050, and to enhance Egypt's Vision 2030.

Egypt has put down a number of old power stations, totaling 5 gigawatts capacity, due to their large consumption of fossil fuel and replacing them with renewable energy sources, a matter that made it one of the promising countries that has the ability to make this transition, Hennerkes further noted.

Earlier, Heike Harmgart, the Managing Director for the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region at the Bank said that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is Egypt's lead partner on the NWFE energy pillar.

The EBRD will provide for its partnership with Egypt in this regard €1.3 billion to finance projects of transition to green and renewable energy in the coming five years, she added.

Harmgart added the EBRD cooperates with Egypt's Ministries of Electricity and Renewable Energy and Petroleum and Mineral Resources to launch the green hydrogen strategy for Egypt.

She stated the EBRD seeks to activate the 19 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) that global companies signed with the Egyptian private sector as part of a partnership agreement to make green hydrogen and green ammonia available for domestic consumption and for exporting abroad.

Nine of those companies have shifted from the MoUs phase into building a framework agreement, as they conduct feasibility studies and move into building real projects in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), Harmgart said.

"We are happy this progress fits into the energy transition program executed by the Egyptian government to establish a lot of wind farms, four of them include green hydrogen production, which could help the country to become a regional hub for exporting energy," she added.

In November 2022, Egypt had signed framework agreements with global energy companies to establish nine hydrogen and green ammonia production projects in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, at a cost of USD 83 billion.

Egypt is a founding member of the EBRD. Since the start of its operations there in 2012, the Bank has invested more than €9.8 billion in 152 projects across the country.

The partnership agreement to implement the NWFE energy pillar was signed in November 2022 between the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of International Cooperation and the EBRD-led group of development partners ‒ the United Kingdom, Agence Française de Développement, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the African Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Denmark’s Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) and the Netherlands’ Invest International.

The political declaration was issued by Egypt, the United States of America and Germany on November 11, 2022.