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During the activities of the second day of the fourth edition of the forum, in the presence of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Republic, a number of young people participated in a discussion session entitled “Energy Paths: Moving towards a Safer Future”, with the participation of a list of elite speakers, including: Dr. Mohamed Shaker, Minister of Electricity and Energy, Mohamed Abou El-Enein, Undersecretary of the House of Representatives, and Rana Ghoneim, Head of the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Division at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
At the beginning of the session, the session discussed the crisis that struck the world during the past two years in the field of energy, which represented the clear gap between supply and demand, which led to a shock in most productive sectors, creating the highest inflationary wave since the seventies of the last century.
The Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy began his speech, explaining the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the energy sector, which led to a decrease in demand for energy sources as a result of the lack of production, and Shaker confirmed that Egypt was not affected by this crisis as a result of the presence of a surplus in the production of electrical energy, and the diversification of government investments. in energy sources.
Shaker added that the Egyptian government aims to provide 42% of the electricity production from renewable energy sources by 2025, compared to 20% in 2022, in addition to a decrease in the price of producing kilowatts of electric energy generated from solar energy for 2 cents, and for 2.85 cents from wind energy.
Franklin Osweta, Managing Director of “Pacific Energy Systems Limited” spoke about the causes of the global energy crisis and its repercussions on the current energy market, and stated that global investments in energy exploration have declined over the past two years in exchange for increased demand for energy sources, which created a major problem field of energy, which requires global solutions, so that energy prices do not continue to rise.
Emad Ghaly, the former managing director of Siemens Egypt and the current CEO of SDSmena, pointed to the different options and paths for the countries of the world, and whether they will go towards developing renewable energy sources, or will they work to increase the supply of conventional energy, and stated that the right direction, which has become the one most countries are adopting is towards developing renewable energy production sources.
Ghali added that the decrease in the cost of renewable energy is constantly evolving as a result of the low cost of operating and energy storage equipment, noting that the real challenge facing most countries now is how to gradually reduce the use of traditional energy and increase reliance on renewable energy sources, especially the necessity of using green hydrogen. As a strategic path in renewable energy and its use in many industries such as transportation, iron and steel, energy storage and others. Mohamed Abou El-Enein, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cleopatra Group, the current deputy of the House of Representatives and the former Chairman of the Industry and Energy Committee in the House of Representatives, explained the impact of the various available paths on all productive activities, industrial, agricultural and services, in addition to its reflection on the economic goals represented in boosting growth and employment rates.
Abou El-Enein mentioned that the current energy problem is a complex one, as the current pandemic has caused a problem in supply and demand, and despite that, the year 2021 was the most polluted in history, due to the heavy increase in dependence on fossil fuels during that year, and he also mentioned that the factor It is currently striving towards self-sufficiency in renewable energy sources, but the current technical problems and high cost remain the obstacle to optimizing them.
Rana Ghoneim, Head of Energy and Infrastructure Systems at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), presented that the trend towards using renewable energy sources is no longer an option but rather a mandatory trend for all countries, developing and African countries in particular. Then Dr. Ghoneim spoke about the role of the African continent in limiting the use of traditional energies, in light of what it possesses of renewable energy sources. She also called for developing and urging the world to increase the use of renewable energy sources.
At the end of the session, the speakers recommended a set of recommendations, including increasing the volume and effectiveness of sustainable international financing by multilateral development institutions, directed to developing countries to support the transition to clean energy and green hydrogen on concessional terms, and emphasizing international efforts to increase the effectiveness of government policies supporting private investment directed at clean energy. He urged traditional energy producers to maintain market stability, to achieve global economic recovery, to confirm the full fulfillment of the financing commitments established under the Paris Agreement and to enhance the mutual issue between donors and recipients to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, and to adopt an international mechanism to raise the cost of using coal as a source of energy, with the aim of accelerating the pace of the transition to renewable energy, emphasizing the role of natural gas as a pathway for renewable energies in the long-term transformation process, and adopting economic incentives at the international level to reduce the cost of producing industrial minerals used in the development of renewable energy equipment.
The speakers also suggested a set of initiatives to activate the previous recommendations, including the establishment of a fund to guarantee the risks of green investments and green hydrogen in developing countries, with the aim of stimulating green investments in developing countries, especially investment in that field, and the proposed implementation body is the United Nations, and the funding comes from multilateral developmen institutions and climate finance under the Paris Agreement.
In addition to the establishment of a global fund to finance the liberalization of patents related to renewable energy industries, the objective of which is to reduce the cost of producing renewable energy equipment, and its proposed implementation entity is the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and the World Bank is financing this project. In addition to concluding an international agreement to remove customs tariffs for minerals in the renewable energy sector to reduce the cost of producing renewable energy equipment, provided that this agreement is affiliated with the World Trade Organization, and to establish a Renewable Energy Consultation Center with the aim of establishing a house of expertise to provide technical advice and training in relation to production and development And the use of renewable energy in developing countries, and the Egyptian state, in cooperation with the African Union, will be the implementers.
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