In partnership with the Regulatory Authority for Energy of the Hellenic Republic (RAE) and the Italian Regulatory Authority for Electricity, Gas, and Water (AEEGSI), the Egyptian Electric Utility and Consumer Protection Regulatory Agency (EgyptERA) will launch the European Union (EU) Twinning project, according to a press release on the EU website.

The project aims to offer technical support to develop Egypt’s electricity and power sector under the auspices of the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy and the support of the Association Agreement Program (SAAP). It will be implemented over 23 months with a budget of $1.35m.

EU Neighborhood Info wrote that the project will play a key role in helping Egypt achieve its strategic objective of interconnecting the Egyptian power system with neighboring countries and ultimately with the European network.

EgyptERA has previously received three stages of EU-funded technical support projects that aid government agencies. The twinning project comes as the fourth stage to support EgyptERA in creating a competitive electricity market that complies with the requirements of the Electricity Law.

The EU-guided support resulted in a number of achievements, including the restructuring of Egypt’s electricity tariff program and the development of the country’s five-year plan, which was put into effect by the cabinet in July 2014 and runs until July 2019.