IRENA discusses renewable energy with Egyptian President

IRENA
Image: Office of the Egyptian President

Director general of IRENA Adnan Z Amin met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during a high-level visit to the country to discuss the country’s renewable energy progress.

Amin was in Cairo to launch the Agency’s Renewable Energy Outlook: Egypt report, during the first Egypt Renewable Energy Conference co-organised by IRENA, the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, and the New and Renewable Energy Authority, under the auspices of the President.

During the meeting Amin and President Sisi discussed Egypt’s progress in the pursuit of large-scale renewable deployment and identified areas in which bilateral cooperation can be strengthened.

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President el-Sisi praised the agency’s efforts in encouraging sustainable energy pathways, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, through stronger regional and national cooperation.

The President stressed that major infrastructure projects, including renewable projects, are of a priority in Egypt, and emphasised Egypt’s ambition to become a regional exporter of energy, including sustainable energy, through grid interconnections with is neighbouring countries. Opportunities for further collaboration between Egypt and IRENA such as sustainable energy resource assessments were also discussed.

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Amin underlined that IRENA looked forward to strengthening cooperation with Egypt, particularly in the context of new findings presented by the Agency this week identifying the potential for renewable energy to account for more than 50 per cent of the country’s power generation by 2030.

The two also discussed opportunities to support further deployment of sustainable energy across the African continent.

Egypt will chair the African Union in 2019.

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