Proposed Vision for Energy in Egypt

Introduction

The strategic vision for the energy is a vital matter as the choices we make today will have their positive or negative consequences in the coming years. In fact, most of the current energy needs are produced from limited and nonrenewable resources. Therefore, finding the ways to manage the energy in the urban areas today will ensure that we shall not jeopardize the future of our energy needs. The policies of sustainable strategic energy do not only include more than energy efficiency and the conservation measurements, but also must be diversified, flexible, renewable and integrated. There is no doubt that the energy sector represents a crucial element in the national development for any country, especially Egypt. As energy represents a main element in all the operations of production and also the main element in providing social services which contribute in the prosperity of urban and country side people. The strategies of producing, distributing, and also consuming the energy have its own wide consequences on the environment on the long run. The strategic vision of energy will have its own consequences on others fields of national development such as agriculture, land reclaim, the transportation using road, maritime, and air, and also telecommunications, information technology, housing, urban development, mining, tourism, and last but not least, industry.

Overview of Energy Situation in Egypt

Egypt is one of the important countries in producing oil, and also its production of natural gas is increasing rapidly, but with the economic development, oil and natural gas may not be enough to meet the energy needs, as the consumption has increased more than the production in the recent years and consequently the sole dependence of energy sector on both oil and gas, surely will not be toward the benefit of the next generations and will represent a real challenge to the national development. However, there are plans to increase the energy production using wind, and solar energy, and also via connecting the energy networks with the Gulf Council Countries and the Eastern Mediterranean Countries, and lately building nuclear energy station.

Main Objectives of Strategic Vision for Energy

The strategic vision for energy must help Egypt to maintain its natural resources of energy and investing them for the benefit of Egypt in the near and far future and it must have the following main objectives:

The First Objective: ensuring that the energy supplies, which meet the needs of Egyptian locally and also economically, are secured with high confidence, constant continuity and competitive prices.

The Second Objective: enforcing high responsibility toward the Egyptian environment and the society with concentration on the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions which increase the temperature and maintaining the necessary measurements which reduce the energy projects effects on the environment, infrastructure with the participation of all Egyptians.

The Third Objective: The contribution of developing and flourishing the Egyptian economy by encouraging the innovation, not only in maintaining the natural resources of energy but also increasing them, specially the traditional, renewable and niche energy resources, by enhancing the technology, the approach, and also the human resources.

The Fourth Objective: The reduction of dependence on the nonrenewable energy resources such as oil, coal, natural gas, and also the nuclear, and increasing the dependence on the renewable energy resources such as sun, wind, tides, hydroelectric, waves, geothermal, and biofuels.

The Fifth Objective: Transforming Egypt from a country exporting nonrenewable energy natural resources to a pivotal country in producing and exporting the energy in its final shape for direct use as a commercial product to Nile Basin countries, African countries, Arab countries, Islamic countries, and also the Allied countries, after the depletion the nonrenewable energy resources. Moreover, transforming Egypt to an advanced country in the technology of energy transportation, distribution, measurement and also the energy management.

The Great Challenges and The Potential Opportunities

Although the energy sector in Egypt is facing many critical challenges, however, there are also many opportunities to secure the energy supplies and continuously developing them to achieve the main objectives of the strategic vision for energy which is a main component for Egypt prosperity and the welfare of the Egyptians, and also a red line for the Egyptian national security as whoever does not have his own energy, does not control his own economy. Therefore, it is a must to elaborate more on the nature of the great challenges and also the optimal exploit of potential opportunities to find realistic solutions can be applied through planning depends on the integrations among its axes to achieve the elevation of Egypt and giving this generation and the next generations the whole opportunity to advance Egypt among all the nations.

Meet the Energy Needs

The Egyptian local consumption is continuously increasing and it is a critical necessity to exploit the untraditional and emerging energy resources. Therefore, it is a must to exploit the Egyptian natural resources for generating energy in a way which will improve the use of nonrenewable resources to increase the lifetime of their productivity and avoiding their depletion in the near future and also increasing the use of renewable and emerging resources in the future developing projects and transforming the existing projects to use these resources in a united and integrated framework. And it is a must to increase the discovery of the nonrenewable energy resources such as oil, coal, and natural gas without using them in generating energy and leaving them as a strategic reserve for generating energy by the next generations when it is a must.

Energy Conservation by Efficient Consumption

The energy needs are not met by only developing its resources, but also by maintaining it and consuming it in a highly efficiently way to contribute in an effective way to decrease the expected needs in the housing, commercial and industrial sectors, and to give direct benefits for securing the energy and decreasing its negative effects on the environment by firm application of the public energy policies to use the products and follow up the guidelines which increase the energy consumption efficiency and also apply the system for energy management to have full control on the consumption. The merciful use of energy is a national duty on every Egyptian citizen which will protect him from the increase of the energy international prices and the fluctuation of energy supplies which will impact negatively on all aspects of life clearly till we have energy self-sufficiency.

Developing the Energy Technology

All the energy resources have advantages and disadvantages, but developing the energy technology will result in exploring other resources to generate the energy and enhancing the ways for transmission and distribution, besides the ways for energy measuring and management to give the citizen in the housing areas accurate reports of the consumption, and practical tools to control it, and also give the businessman in the commercial areas and industrial facilities the ability to control the energy and integrating it in the production operations to decrease the costs and increase the profits.

Constructing Advanced Energy Network

Egypt is proud that it has a united energy network spread through Egypt, but it is necessary to construct an energy network with huge storage capacity and flexible enough that it can accommodate energy from different resources to guarantee the continuity of energy supplies to the consumers according to the nature of the consumption and its rates to achieve the maximum benefit of the renewable and emerging energy without consuming the nonrenewable energy resources. Therefore, it is a must to increase the investment in constructing this network to cover not only the urban areas in Egypt, but also the non-urban areas according to the strategic vision of Egypt in the developing plans, and also to be ready for exporting the energy to the countries which suffer from the shortage of energy which will add to Egypt a political and economic weight regionally.

Attract the Egyptian Investments for Energy Sector

The energy sector in Egypt must be sovereign sector and under the heavy control of the Egyptian government, but it is a must to encourage the private investments to this vital sector to develop it as soon as possible, but absolutely not on the expense of the sovereignty of the sector, by giving granting the major part of the founding companies of the energy sector to the Egyptian government and granting the less part to the private sector with alignment of the Egyptian laws. As promoting the cooperation and communication between the private and public sectors will surely result in developing the energy sector with direct benefits to the Egyptian citizen.

Human Resources Development for Energy Sector

Completing the energy projects successfully, constructing advanced energy network, developing energy technology, and application of conserving energy by efficient consumption, need educated, skilled, and available human resources in the Egyptian labor market. Therefore, the shortage of this skilled resources will not only result in delaying the energy projects and increasing their cost by hiring foreign consultants, but will also result in losing the sovereignty of the country on this vital and critical sector. It is a must to build specialized energy institutions in all its fields such as generating energy from nonrenewable, renewable, and emerging sources, besides energy transmission, distribution, measurement, and management, in a way which will achieve depending Egypt on Egyptians in the energy sector.

Constructing Green Energy Communities

The energy generation in these communities depend on the renewable energy sources, specially, the sun and wind, which will generate clean energy and also green, to increase the adoption of the Egyptian community to the renewable energy and also benefit from its positive effect on the environment and decrease the energy bills and enhancing the local economy by increasing the job related to the industry and trade of green energy.

Conclusion

The importance of the energy to the modern economy is as the importance of the blood to the human body. The human body cannot survive without the blood, and the economy cannot advance without energy. Therefore, it is a must to every Egyptian citizen to conserve the energy as conserving the blood, and it is a must to the political leaders, and the Egyptian governments in the present and the future to work hard to meet the energy needs of Egypt and the Egyptians in a clean way taking care of the environment and with competitive prices available to everyone and in a secure and stable way to achieve for this generation and the future generation the complete chance to achieve the welfare of Egyptians and to consult the capabilities of Egypt to attain its distinguished position among the rising poles with God Well.

Fouad Sabry

December 2011