Egyptian Electricity Minister, Mohamed Shaker stated on December 6th that Egypt will add between 2,000MW and 3,000MW to the country’s electricity generation capacity in 2016, Ahram Online reports.
The minister stated the expansion will ease some of the rationing, which has led to power outages and reduced industry supplies.
Reductions in industrial fuel supplies have put pressure on Egyptian manufacturing, especially cement and steel. The ministry hopes to accelerate the expansion projects to aid Egyptian industry.
“We believe that this summer will be better than the last. We are anticipating 2,500-3,000 MW of existing projects that we are accelerating,” Shaker said, according to Reuters.
The minister stated that 6,882MW of capacity had been added to the Egyptian grid since the beginning of 2015, aided by LNG imports. Egypt’s total capacity in May 2015 was around 32,000MW, the Middle East Economic Survey estimated.