President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi reviewed progress on the second phase of projects aimed at strengthening Egypt’s national electricity grid during a meeting with Mahmoud Esmat, Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy, noted a Cabinet Statement.

According to the presidential spokesperson, Ambassador Mohamed El-Shenawy El-Shennawy, the meeting looked into the implementation status of the second phase of grid reinforcement projects, which comprises around 105 projects. Esmat also briefed the president on plans to connect solar and wind energy projects to the national grid by 2027.

The meeting also shed light on the ongoing solar energy and battery storage projects as part of Egypt’s plan to increase the share of renewable energy in the power mix to 45% within the next two years. Discussions covered the expansion of both grid-connected and standalone energy storage facilities.

Esmat highlighted the operation of the first phase of the Obelisk Solar Power Plant, which was connected to the grid earlier this year. The first phase has a capacity of 500 megawatts (MW), along with a 200 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage system. He added that the second phase of the project, with an additional 500 MW of solar capacity, is scheduled to be connected to the grid in the coming weeks as part of plans to add new solar and wind generation capacity during the summer.

The meeting further reviewed developments related to the Energy Valley project, one of the world’s largest integrated clean energy projects. The project includes 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaic solar generation capacity in Minya Governorate, supported by battery energy storage systems with a total capacity of 4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) distributed across Minya, Qena, and Alexandria.

The meeting came a couple of days after Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi’s visit to Ain Sokhna, where he inspected the liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification units to ensure full operational readiness ahead of peak summer demand.