Egypt energy profile
Egypt — a solar success story colliding with a gas supply crisis
~1.6-1.8 GW
Benban Solar Park capacity
8.6 GW
Total renewable capacity (FY2024/25)
$3 Bn
Emergency LNG deal after 2024 power shortages
42% → 60%
Renewable electricity targets, 2030 → 2040
Benban and the renewable buildout
Forty solar plants in the desert near Aswan
A genuinely large project, built fast:
Benban Solar Park, near Aswan, launched in 2018 as 40 separate solar plants of roughly 50 MW each, combining for approximately 1.6-1.8 GW — one of the largest photovoltaic installations anywhere in the world, capable in theory of powering over a million homes. It was financed substantially through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has committed roughly $10 billion across more than 150 projects in Egypt, with Benban held up as one of its flagship successes. Since renewables made up just 1% of Egypt's energy mix when President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi took office in 2014, Benban represented a genuinely dramatic shift in national energy strategy.
Benban Solar Park, near Aswan, launched in 2018 as 40 separate solar plants of roughly 50 MW each, combining for approximately 1.6-1.8 GW — one of the largest photovoltaic installations anywhere in the world, capable in theory of powering over a million homes. It was financed substantially through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has committed roughly $10 billion across more than 150 projects in Egypt, with Benban held up as one of its flagship successes. Since renewables made up just 1% of Egypt's energy mix when President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi took office in 2014, Benban represented a genuinely dramatic shift in national energy strategy.
Expansion in every direction:
Additional solar capacity keeps stacking up nearby: Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power completed a 200 MW plant at Kom Ombo, just 20 km from Benban, and further expansions from AMEA Power, Masdar, and other developers are adding hundreds of additional megawatts across new sites including Dakhla Oasis and Abydos. Wind development is concentrated along the Gulf of Suez, one of the best wind resource areas in the world, including a 1.1 GW wind farm serving more than a million households and cutting an estimated 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year. Combined renewable capacity reached approximately 8.6 GW by the 2024/25 fiscal year, and the government now targets 42% renewable electricity by 2030, rising to as much as 60% by 2040.
Additional solar capacity keeps stacking up nearby: Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power completed a 200 MW plant at Kom Ombo, just 20 km from Benban, and further expansions from AMEA Power, Masdar, and other developers are adding hundreds of additional megawatts across new sites including Dakhla Oasis and Abydos. Wind development is concentrated along the Gulf of Suez, one of the best wind resource areas in the world, including a 1.1 GW wind farm serving more than a million households and cutting an estimated 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year. Combined renewable capacity reached approximately 8.6 GW by the 2024/25 fiscal year, and the government now targets 42% renewable electricity by 2030, rising to as much as 60% by 2040.
A gas exporter turned importer, betting on hydrogen
The gas squeeze — and Egypt's green hydrogen answer
From exporter to emergency importer:
Declining domestic natural gas production, combined with rising electricity demand, produced temporary nationwide power shortages in mid-2024 — a jarring moment for a country that had previously been a net gas exporter. Egypt responded with roughly $3 billion in LNG supply deals with Shell and TotalEnergies signed in late 2024, securing 60 cargo shipments through 2025, and gas imports have since surged. The episode exposed how quickly Egypt's energy security position could shift, and it's added real urgency to the renewable buildout — not just as a climate policy, but as a hedge against future gas supply gaps.
Declining domestic natural gas production, combined with rising electricity demand, produced temporary nationwide power shortages in mid-2024 — a jarring moment for a country that had previously been a net gas exporter. Egypt responded with roughly $3 billion in LNG supply deals with Shell and TotalEnergies signed in late 2024, securing 60 cargo shipments through 2025, and gas imports have since surged. The episode exposed how quickly Egypt's energy security position could shift, and it's added real urgency to the renewable buildout — not just as a climate policy, but as a hedge against future gas supply gaps.
The green hydrogen bet, and its tension:
Egypt has positioned the Suez Canal Economic Zone as a hub for green hydrogen and ammonia exports, with framework agreements from ACWA Power ($4 billion, targeting up to 2 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year at scale), Masdar, Globeleq, and a Siemens/Scatec facility aiming for 1 million tonnes annually by 2035 — the government has even stated an ambition to supply 10% of global hydrogen demand by 2050. But analysts, including at the Atlantic Council, have flagged a genuine structural tension: diverting scarce renewable electricity toward hydrogen production for export competes directly with a domestic grid that, as the 2024 shortages showed, still depends heavily on natural gas — meaning Egypt's hydrogen ambitions may need its domestic energy supply stabilised first, not after.
Egypt has positioned the Suez Canal Economic Zone as a hub for green hydrogen and ammonia exports, with framework agreements from ACWA Power ($4 billion, targeting up to 2 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year at scale), Masdar, Globeleq, and a Siemens/Scatec facility aiming for 1 million tonnes annually by 2035 — the government has even stated an ambition to supply 10% of global hydrogen demand by 2050. But analysts, including at the Atlantic Council, have flagged a genuine structural tension: diverting scarce renewable electricity toward hydrogen production for export competes directly with a domestic grid that, as the 2024 shortages showed, still depends heavily on natural gas — meaning Egypt's hydrogen ambitions may need its domestic energy supply stabilised first, not after.
Questions
Questions about Egyptian energy
How did Egypt go from being a natural gas exporter to needing emergency LNG imports?
The shift happened faster than most observers expected, and it comes down to declining output from Egypt's own gas fields outpacing the growth in demand for electricity. Egypt had built a strong export position on the strength of major discoveries, most notably the giant offshore Zohr field discovered in 2015, which briefly made the country a significant LNG exporter and energy success story. But gas fields naturally decline in output over time without sustained new investment and drilling, and by 2024 domestic production had fallen enough — combined with steadily rising electricity demand from a growing population and economy — that supply could no longer reliably cover both domestic consumption and export commitments. Rather than choosing between blackouts and breaking export contracts, Egypt chose to start importing LNG itself, even while remaining a gas producer, essentially using the international market to cover the gap between what its own fields could deliver and what its economy needed. It's a pattern several mature gas-producing regions have faced as their most productive fields age, and it's part of why Egypt's renewable buildout has taken on added urgency — solar and wind capacity, once built, doesn't experience the same kind of production decline a gas field does over time. Source: Gas Outlook · Chambers and Partners Egypt Projects & Energy Law · Egypt Oil & Gas.
Provenance
Attribution and citation
- Sources
- Chambers and Partners (Projects & Energy Law: Egypt) · AGBI · Atlantic Council · Egypt Oil & Gas · pv magazine · Gas Outlook · Gulf News
- Cite as
- "Egypt Energy Profile — Complete Reference", The Energy Codex, https://thecodex.expert/energy/countries/egypt/, last updated .