Egypt Pulls Renewable Target Forward to 45 Percent by 2028
President El-Sisi reviewed wind, grid and storage projects as the government compresses its clean energy timetable by two years.
Egypt has moved its renewable energy target forward, aiming for a 45 percent share of its energy mix by 2028 rather than the 42 percent it had set for 2030. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi reviewed the status of wind generation and grid reinforcement work tied to that goal in a meeting with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Electricity and Renewable Energy Minister Mahmoud Esmat and Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk.
The president examined where the 200-megawatt wind plant in the Gulf of Suez stands. That project feeds directly into the 45 percent target for 2028.
Esmat told the meeting that his ministry has signed a contract to reinforce the national grid, covering construction of a new 500-kilovolt overhead transmission line. The line is meant to carry power from the Gulf of Suez wind farms to consumption areas across the country, part of a wider push to expand and strengthen the grid.
Generation, storage and desalination
Officials also went through projects to raise renewable generation, extend battery energy storage capacity and build the infrastructure around them. Esmat presented a portfolio of generation and storage schemes at different stages — completed, under construction, and due to enter service shortly. The conversation touched on international cooperation and partnerships.
El-Sisi framed the shift as a security question as much as an environmental one. A more diversified and sustainable mix, he said, serves energy security, cuts emissions, makes better use of natural resources and reduces dependence on fossil fuels.
Green hydrogen initiatives and seawater desalination came up as well. A desalination complex is planned for the El-Dabaa region, intended as an integrated system drawing on advanced technologies and specialised expertise. Other desalination projects are attached to existing power plants and developed with international partners. Together they are meant to secure sustainable desalinated water supplies and to help localise the relevant technologies and industries.
The president also reviewed efforts to build domestic manufacturing in black sands and to extract more economic value from the resource. He called for localising industries tied to black sands and rare elements, and urged that Egypt's natural resources be turned into higher-value industrial products instead of being extracted and used as raw material.
Kouchouk presented the latest economic and fiscal developments, measures to handle global economic challenges, and the state of cooperation with international financial institutions. He reviewed work to reduce the debt of state budget entities. El-Sisi stressed how much that reduction matters and asked state institutions to coordinate behind the initiatives and plans, with the aim of hitting the government's announced targets.
The compressed timeline is the harder part. Wind farms and storage can be financed and built, but a 2028 deadline leaves little room for the transmission work that has to run alongside them — which is why a single 500-kilovolt line features in a presidential review of the whole energy programme. Off-grid solar is a separate lever: the World Bank has estimated that $11.4 billion is needed to expand off-grid solar access by 2030.
