Global energy markets are currently disrupted by the supply difficulties caused by the high tensions in the Red Sea and the attacks on shipping by Houthi forces.
The piracy in the crucial route that feeds the Suez Canal has stoked global concern, not least over the threat it poses to lift costs and re-stoke global inflation.
But Egypt’s economy faces a much more direct threat, as tankers and container ships are expensively re-routed, cutting a vital source of revenue.
Read more: International efforts to rescue Egypt's economy intensify
As the country diversifies its sources of income in foreign currency, it has turned to the wider energy sector and returned to ambitions that run beyond transporting fossil fuels. It is seeking a more durable energy source, immune from geopolitical turmoil and in line with the global fight against climate change.
Cairo has revived a plan drawn up with Russia for a nuclear power plant at Dabba, which was shelved in 1956, but is now seen as one of the most important national projects in a decade. The generator’s reactors will be advanced, third-generation designs, among the most technologically advanced in use globally.
It will also mean the country can produce enough power to run the essential desalination plants needed to prevent a scarcity of freshwater – not least in the region that will be home to the state-of-the-art generators – offering hope that its agricultural sector can be boosted.
Located on the Mediterranean coast in the Matrouh Governorate, the Dabaa plant will have four reactors, a capacity of 4.8 gigawatts and an operational life of 60 years, which could be extended to 80 years.
The plans for clean, low-cost energy are in line with global moves toward new sources of low-carbon power.
More than 20 countries issued a joint statement at the COP28 climate change summit held in the United Arab Emirates last year as part of ambitions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and maintain the possibility of reaching the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
But the Dabba project will also help take Egypt toward its local development goals. The decision to revive its nuclear electricity programme comes as the Arab world also considers similar plans, as does Russia.
Other nations are looking at other methods, including renewable sources such as solar energy via photovoltaic plants, with China being the leading country in these projects.
Cheaper, more secure power supplies
Egypt currently relies on fossil fuels – natural gas and diesel – to produce 85% of its electricity. It is an expensive and, at times, unreliable means of power, vulnerable to disruption from the impact of the national shortage of dollars to buy fuel and production interruptions from the extreme heat caused by climate change.
The Ministry of Electricity implemented a plan last year to reduce power loads by scheduling power outages to minimise the consumption of natural gas and fuel oil at operating power plants, which the government heavily subsidises.
