Sun-soaked North Africa pushes for cheap energy

• Solar panels glint in the sun on a Tunisian lagoon, part of a long-delayed drive to harness the North African country's vast renewable resource capacity.

While sector experts complain of bureaucracy, fossil fuel costs that soared after Russia's February intrusion of Ukraine created a powerful reward for such investments throughout the Maghreb region.

" Algeria, Tunisia as well as Morocco, each have a wealth of solar energy sources as well as ample wind energy sources," claimed Michael Tanchum, a professional on the sector.

" Extreme rate pressures on natural gas, especially in Europe, have changed the calculus for investments in renewable resource."

Omar Bey, of French-based renewables developer Qair, hopes the firm's 200-kilowatt floating solar station on a lake alongside a Tunis industrial park can be a prototype for larger projects nationwide.

" Tunisia doesn't have any kind of option but to choose renewables, offered the circumstance around hydrocarbons as well as particularly gas," he stated, including that technologies like floating solar terminals could assist.

Being on tanks or lakes helps cool the panels, making them extra reliable, as well as "indicates we can use water as opposed to taking up land that can be utilized for other points like farming or homes," Bey stated.

It likewise helps in reducing dissipation, one more advantage in the water-stressed area, he claimed.

Tunisia, on the sun-drenched Mediterranean Sea, is well-placed to produce clean energy both for domestic usage and also for export to energy-hungry Europe.

In 2015 the country set ambitious targets for renewables.

But last year green sources accounted for just 2.8 percent of the nation's energy mix and the rest came from natural gas, according to the state Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG).

Tanchum, a non-resident scholar at Washington's Middle East Institute, said "political paralysis" was holding the field back.

Tunisia has experienced greater than a decade of chaos given that its 2011 transformation. Ideological wrangling has actually typically taken precedence over changing the economy, which depends greatly on food and energy imports.

The state's fuel subsidies bill rose 370 percent in the initial half of this year contrasted to the exact same period of 2021, official numbers show.

Yet, in spite of incentives to push for renewables, such efforts have been held back by lawful as well as management challenges, according to Ali Kanzari, head of state of an organization representing solar firms.

" Occasionally (imported solar panels) sit for a month or even more in customs," he said.

" We require a lot more flexible laws. Everything requires to be quickened."

Morocco leads

One significant solar station in the desert near Tataouine was lastly connected to the grid in October, two years after its completion. Project head Abdelmomen Ferchichi blamed difficulties in obtaining permits, as well as the terminal's range from the grid.

Bey claimed "misunderstandings" among some union participants within STEG, wary of attempts to privatise the industry by stealth, had actually also postponed growth.

" Today, all that's behind us," he stated.

Tanchum told AFP that despite the renewables possibility of the whole Maghreb, "just Morocco has actually become a local leader".

Morocco made a decision in 2009 to boost renewables to 52 percent of its energy mix by 2030 and also it currently produces around a fifth of its electricity from clean sources, according to the government.

Its energy ministry says "this vision has actually started bearing fruit, with 111 renewable energy projects completed or under growth".

They include a solar as well as wind facility to create greater than 10 gigawatts of power as well as send it to the UK by means of a 3,800-kilometre (2,360-mile) undersea cable.

Tunisia dreams of doing something similar.

In October, it made an application for a European Union give for an 800-million euro ($ 828 million) cable to Italy covering 200 kilometres, to browse the web by 2027.

For Kanzari, the association head of state, the link can't come quickly enough.

" They're mosting likely to have a cold winter season" in Europe, he said. "If we would certainly had a cable that prepared, and also four or five gigawatt solar power terminals in the desert, we 'd be offering electricity and also making hard cash."

Tanchum claimed that although Maghreb nations could take advantage of this sort of project, a lot of the energy ought to be for domestic use, so they "don't end up being the green battery of Europe".

Algeria's enthusiastic target

Neighbouring Algeria, Africa's top natural gas manufacturer, has actually established the ambitious target of 15,000 megawatts from solar by 2035.

The first part of a 1,000-megawatt project is readied to come online by late next year, but for now the country creates just 3 percent of its electricity from the sun.

Intissar Fakir, head of the North Africa and Sahel Programme at the Middle East Institute, claimed Algeria's money excess from gas exports is mosting likely to upgrade the fossil fuel facilities, not to renewables.

There are also "large hurdles for foreign financial investment in the industry-- not least Algeria's notorious bureaucracy," she added.