Science Monitor

Transcription

Science Monitor

The German Egyptian Science Monitor Issue 2 - March 2016
Dwz Energy -- Conference Report
“Rethinking Energy:
Scientific Input – Social Output”
Dear Readers,
Sebastian Helgenberger
Social Benefits of Renewable Energies
Michael Stephan
Business Models for the Diffusion of Solar
Technologies in Egypt
Ahmed Zahran
KarmSolar R&D Investment Experience
Yaseen Abdel-Ghaffar, Rana Alaa
The Solar Energy Start-Up Scene in Egypt
Thomas Schlegl
The Benefits of Solar Energy in Egypt
Majeed Abdul-Hameed Abdul-Hussain
Integration of Renewable Power
Resources into National Transmission Grid
Bernhard Wille-Haussmann
Smart Grid Technologies and Grid
Planning
Mohammad Reza Farzanegan,
Gunther Markwardt
Economic Development and Air Pollution
in the Middle East and North Africa:
Democracy Matters
In the second edition of the German Egyptian Science Monitor we have the pleasure to
follow up on last year’s annual conference of the German Science Centre (DWZ) which
took place in November 2015: „Re-thinking Energy: Scientific Input – Social Outcome”.
This year’s German Egyptian Science Monitor thus serves as a collection of selected conference contributions in order to document the findings in a sustainable manner and make
them accessible to the broader public.
Responding to the complexity of the multidimensional subject of energy, the conference
was structured in line with the diverse expertise of the DWZ members and followed this
year’s annual theme „Moving Science – Energy for the Future”. Throughout the conference
the entire range of topics concerning energy was analyzed within five different working
sessions. Ranging from the expansion of renewable energies, to socio-economic implications and the necessity of awareness raising within the educational sector. A summary of
the major outcomes can be found within this publication.
Prof. Dr. Miranda Schreurs from Freie Universität Berlin opened the conference with a keynote speech offering insights into the German energy transition. She advises the German
government on issues of energy and sustainability and is further the elected chairwoman
of the “European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Council”. Focusing
on Egypt‘s tremendous potential in using renewable energy sources Prof. Schreurs pointed
out that besides environmental and health benefits a sustainable transition away from fossil
fuels will have positive effects on the employment and innovation potential in the green
economy sector.
The first reduction of energy subsidies in July 2014 and the introduction of a feed-in tariff
constitute a promising and important step towards the Egyptian goal of increasing the
share of renewable energies up to 20% of the national energy mix by 2020. To intensify
and further support this strategy a coherent development and implementation of energy
efficiency measures and application-oriented research is of crucial importance. These are
needed in order to identify and adapt feasible means to Egypt‘s case specific climate conditions and will open up the full potential of renewables energies in Egypt.
The German Science Centre in Cairo gladly supports this endeavor by bridging the gap
between academia and industry. Therefore, the second Science Monitor not only provides
a platform for scientists but also addresses young entrepreneurs and experts with a background of practical experiences in the market.
Ahmed Sedky
The goal of the conference and this publication is to deepen and impart the understanding
of renewable energies and the opportunity they constitute for an Egyptian German scientific and economic cooperation.
The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy
Roman Luckscheiter
The One Stop Shop for information about the German research landscape and funding sources.
Responding to the continuous rise in cooperation projects between Egyptian and German universities and research
institutes, the German Science Centre Cairo, supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, serves as a platform
for German-Egyptian exchange in the fields of science, technology and research. In order to strengthen the synergy
of scientists in Germany and Egypt, the DWZ acts as a service provider bringing together experts from academic
institutions, researchers and representatives of industry and government. Moreover, it aims to showcase German science in Egypt
in addition to promoting Germany as a research location.
The DWZ, founded in 2012, has successfully established its own event formats, such as the “German Science Day”. It addresses
young scientists, and regularly organizes exhibitions, scientific events and conferences discussing current issues in science and
innovation. The DWZ seeks to establish thematic links between various academic disciplines ranging from natural sciences and
applied sciences to humanities and social sciences. Main focal areas include but are not restricted to food, water and renewable
energy. Within this framework, the DWZ also emphasizes interdisciplinary topics and collaborates with other esteemed organisations to promote international knowledge transfer and scientific exchange.
The DWZ represents the many facets of research in Germany and provides information about the German research landscape
and funding sources following the principle of the “one-stop shop”.
Our Service
- interdisciplinary events on current issues in science and
innovation
- contacts to German and Egyptian research institutions and
companies
- information and reference materials on German research and
development
- up-to-date research news from Germany and Egypt
- individual consulting on potential cooperation opportunities
- furnishes profiles, activities and services of its partner organizations
The Egyptian German Science Monitor Issue 2 - March 2016
“Rethinking Energy:
Scientific Input – Social Output”
DWZ Energy Conference Report
November 8, 2015
Providing a secure national energy supply, which includes the balanced, sustainable use of the available resources coupled with
continuous development of the highest energy efficiency levels, is
at the core of a nation’s socio-economic development.
In Germany, as well as in Egypt, the sustainable energy production and its larger inclusion in the energy mix are vibrantly debated. This debate is being mirrored by numerous Egyptian-German
research collaborations, which are fostered through multiple projects by the partners of the German Science Centre (DWZ).
Questions surrounding the interdisciplinary topic of energy cannot be answered from an economic perspective alone, but need
strong input from the research sector. Simultaneously, it is indispensable to include the political context of the energy agenda in
social discourse in order to do justice to the holistic demand for
sustainable socio-economic development.
The goal of the conference was to impart and deepen the understanding of the complexity of the multidimensional nature of
energy through five different working groups. Through an interdisciplinary approach, as is represented by the DWZ’s network,
complex interrelations were emphasized and discussed with Egyptian partners. From the expansion of renewable energies, to socio-economic implications and the adoption of energy consciousness within the education sector, the entire range of the topic was
analyzed and recommendations for action developed. Among the
key action points were the development of a clear, committed plan
for Egypt’s energy mix that would inspire longer term investment,
better finance mechanisms for renewable energy projects, more
human resource development, technical training at universities to
meet RE industry needs, improvement of Egypt’s recently implemented Feed-in-Tariff system to encourage on-grid solutions, more
attention and assistance for SME projects and increased energy
efficiency.
In her keynote address, Dr. Miranda Schreurs, Director of Environmental Policy Research at Freie Universität Berlin, discussed
Germany’s energy transition “Energiewende” and goal to reduce
greenhouse gases 80-95% by 2050. That transition has primarily
been driven by private citizens, who produce over 35% of the
renewable energy. They have created energy coops, and communities are coming together to establish biomass, PV or wind en-
© Michael Asaad
© Michael Asaad
ergy projects. The transition toward renewable energy has created
371,000 new jobs in Germany alone, Schreurs said.
Renewable energy does not have to be more expensive if coupled
with energy efficiency measures like changing appliances, insulating windows and not running air conditioning all the time, she
said. The costs of small PV installations in Germany are approaching the cost of coal, Schreurs noted.
“Germany is not the sunniest country; we have 900 hours of sunshine a year, but here in Cairo you have 3,000 per year. On
beautiful days, at the peak of the day, 50% of Germany is powered by the sun. Imagine the potential in Egypt,” she said.
In Egypt, said Laura Oexle, Head of the Science Department at
the German Embassy “the energy crisis, which is still ongoing — but
maybe less noticeable than last year — virtually forces us to rethink
the current system of energy supply. I can partly understand that
the energy crisis requires urgency measures alleviating the situation in the short-run. Investments in coal and nuclear energy are
examples of this. A long-term strategy, an energy scenario for the
next decades, taking into account the rapid population growth
and the severe consequences of climate change are, however,
indispensable.”
Session 1: Innovative Business Models Enabling
Establishment of Renewable Energies in Developing
Countries
Egypt has pledged to have a 20% share of renewable energy in
its energy mix by 2020. While setting up goals is a very encouraging first step for Egypt, the actual implementation of this target
will need to be accompanied by supporting policies and by the
creation of an attractive market for private investors. To encourage
the growth of the sector, Egypt’s Minister of Electricity Mohamed
Shaker introduced a Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme for renewable energy in September 2014, de facto opening up the energy market
to private entrepreneurs, who have since rushed to apply to the
new scheme. There remains the question as to what kind of business model could support such a policy, as the session chairman
Rainer Herret, CEO of the German-Arab Chamber of Commerce,
pointed out. Ø
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The “Benefits of Solar Energy in Egypt” were presented by Dr. Thomas Schlegl, the head of the Energy System Analysis Group at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. According to him, the
Photovoltaic (PV) market is bound to become a market of hundreds
of billion dollars per year in the near future, driven by the drastic
price reduction of the technology. “The price drop will continue,
and we expect prices of PV to be reduced by 40% to 70% in the
next 35 years,” he said, convinced that PV will offer the lowest
electricity cost in the future. In order for a PV project to take off, two
issues need to be clustered: the quality of the product and its low
price, all integrated into the state’s existing energy system and legislation. In order for a country to efficiently and successfully integrate
RE into its energy mix, it needs to consider local conditions very
carefully, including what resources are available and the state of the
infrastructure before giving a framework to investors. The potential
for job creation is very real in the PV market, since parts of the value
chain can be done locally, like the installation, and solar cells could
be produced using desert sand. The part of balance-of-systems
(BOS), including for example ground works, mounting structure, cables and installation can be realized locally rather easily. Fraunhofer ISE has developed a full integrated industrial cluster for the
development, production and application of PV power in Egypt that
covers the entire value chain from the feedstock to the wafer, PV cell
and PV module. The concept for silicon-based PV modules leads to
highly competitive costs for PV modules and solar electricity. PV offers each country a high potential for local penetration, and its decentralized nature creates pockets of energy and employment in
off-grid areas.
© Michael Asaad
Figure 1: Planting the DAAD and the DWZ tree on the premises of OASIS Renewable Energy
during the Fieldtrip ahead of the conference
Yassin Abdel el-Ghaffar, the Founder and Managing Director of
the company SolarizeEgypt, gave an insightful presentation into the
hurdles of starting a solar business in Egypt. It is very difficult to enter
the market as a start-up, since this sector is so capital-intensive, he
said. It took nine months before he found his first client, the American University in Cairo, which wanted to install a decentralized
17kW system on the campus in New Cairo. The AUC agreed to
let SolarizeEgypt use this project as a demonstration site to show
the technology’s potential to future clients, which was the company’s
platform to emerge as a serious actor in what has become a very
competitive market since the FiT scheme was introduced. To this
day, wind and solar energy comprise less than 1% of energy production in Egypt, which is still largely based (at 91%) on fossil fuels.
“The solar radiance in Egypt is one of the highest in the world, with
an average of 2500kW/square meter per year, and 300 sunny
days per year,” he said.
Before the FIT scheme was introduced, it did not make sense for RE
companies to compete with energy sold by the government at artificially low, subsidized prices, according to Abdel el-Ghaffar. The
FiT, accompanied by the announcement of the gradual phase-out of
all fuel subsidies over the next five years, has changed the situation,
even though the scheme as it currently stands is more beneficial for
large-scale applications. Since the FIT gives better prices to larger
systems over small-scale and decentralized systems, it remains a
challenge for SMEs to compete. This is why Abdel el-Ghaffar is
trying to reintroduce the net-metering system which was abandoned
when the FIT started. “We want to create a lobby group to reenact
the net-metering scheme, which gives much more attractive tariffs to
small applications of PV,” he said. He also believes banks have a
role to play in streamlining the finance process of RE start-ups. Since
the FIT introduction, 95 (solar energy) companies compete on the
market in Egypt, this level of competition has driven some of them to
sell at a loss just to secure clients. According to him, there should be
increased consumer awareness on the quality of the system, rather
than favoring the cheapest system per kilowatt. Also, in order to
encourage more citizens to erect PV modules on their rooftops for
self-consumption and to feed into the national grid, the government
should respect its commitment to purchase the excess power produced. “We were delighted when the first check was received by
our customer last week, this gives a very positive signal,” he says.
Moving forward and integrating more solar into Egypt’s energy mix,
requires the country to build a megawatt scale track record and provide Independent Power Producers (IPP) financing options, Abdel
el-Ghaffar said. Energy experts should exist in banks to facilitate the
launch of off-grid projects, and the process to obtain a license to
produce electricity should be made easier.
During the rich conversation which followed the two presentations,
experts in the assembly expressed what they see as a major hurdle
to the large-scale deployment of solar systems in Egypt. The main
concern remains the upfront cost of the technology. In the Western
Desert, which has land in abundance and groundwater resources,
farmers still rely on diesel generators to pump water for irrigation.
Hybrid solar/diesel pumps remain expensive, and farmers don’t
get any support from banks to acquire those systems, which would
considerably lower their reliance on diesel. The Agricultural Development Bank has a plan that was declined by the Central Bank
of Egypt for such projects. Storage is also an issue, and batteries
are still very expensive and only last two years in Egypt due to the
extreme heat, so they haven’t proved economically competitive thus
far.
Session 2: Social Commitment Towards Ambitious
Energy Transformation Goals
Dr. Florian Kohstall, Head of FU Berlin Cairo Office, led the session
on society’s role in spurring the shift toward renewable energy and
the barriers to ambitious energy transformation goals, which often
include lack of acceptance for the feasibility and economics of renewable energy, vested interests in business as usual and so called
NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) resistance to RE projects.
Germany’s civil society has had a particularly active role in influencing the energy mix of the country, primarily resulting from resistance
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to other forms of energy. Outcry against nuclear energy for example was extremely strong following the disaster in Chernobyl and
renewed after Fukushima. Coupled with that societal pressure also
came financial investment and ownership from the citizens themselves, which was fostered by the formation of citizen cooperatives
under a legal framework that guaranteed long-term investments in
RE would be beneficial. Thus, German citizens became the game
changer in the country’s shift to renewable energy, according to Dr.
Sebastian Helgenberger, head of the Transdisciplinary Panel on
Energy Change at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies
e.V..
Egyptian citizens would be more likely to engage if existing RE projects and potential applications were made more visible, rather than
being hidden at secure and remote desert locations, said Sarah El
Battouty, architect, Presidential Advisor and Founding Chairman of
ECOnsult. Her firm has worked with a variety of companies to
convince them that greener buildings and energy efficiency are an
integral part of the long-term health of their businesses. She compared renewable energy investment with a country by country happiness index, suggesting that those countries that are already engaging in RE development are more innovative and also happier
societies.
Session 3: Securing
Policy Measures
the
Future
of
Clean Energy
by
In order to secure the large-scale deployment of renewable energy
sources, the Egyptian government needs to make its support clear
by adopting policies to build investors’ and end-users’ trust in the
market. As Dr. Mohamed El Sobki, Executive Chairman of the New
and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) pointed out, Egypt has
shown an increased commitment in the past year to enact legislation
that would benefit the expansion of this market.
Law 203 of 2014 focused on schemes to develop RE. This law
introduces the IPP public competitive bidding scheme, which refers
to the process where a government identifies and reserves a site for
private development. This scheme has committed projects for the
next seven years for a capacity that exceeds 3,200MW, for which
the licenses have already been granted.
The second scheme introduced by Law 203 is the merchant scheme,
which puts the suppliers and the end users in direct relation. Dr. El
Sobki explained that there are currently two service providers under
this scheme: the Italgen group, which is a consortium of cement
industries who will produce 200MW of wind energy by 2019, and
Elsewedy group which will produce 600MW of wind.
The third scheme is the Feed-in-Tariff, which should expand over
the next few years to incorporate 1,750MW of wind by 2018,
500MW of PV by 2017, and 150MW of rooftop applications by
the same year, which amounts to a total of 4,300MW.
© Michael Asaad
Figure 2: Sarah El-Battouty‘s presentation during the session „Social Commitment Towards Ambitious
Energy Transformation Goals“
Mitigating not-in-my-backyard resistance and engaging citizens
could also be accomplished by fostering more small-scale RE projects, said Senior EcoConServ Consultant Amr Sobhy. Though
Egypt’s RE market and framework is currently geared toward largescale projects, smaller projects are better able to address citizen
complaints and concerns through the planning and implementation
phases.
Dr. El Sobki also stressed the importance of energy efficiency and
conservation: “It is a key factor to develop energy efficiency, and
our target is to achieve an 8% reduction in our anticipated energy
use from our expected usage of renewable energy by year 2022,”
he said. The additional energy needs will be covered by interconnectivity with neighboring countries and renewable energy. Egypt’s
target is to produce 20% of electricity from renewable energy by
2020, and though other experts in some of the sessions were not
as confident Egypt was on track to meet its goals, El Sobki believes
the country could reach 30-40% of its electricity production from RE
by 2035.
Engineer Ahmed Sedky, a senior consultant at EIM-Energy, gave a
presentation on the geopolitics of renewable energy, asking whether they would be similar or vastly different from the current geopolitics of conventional energy sources. For a region like the Middle
East and North Africa, where the energy sector produces 49% of Ø
Citizenry and industry are only two components in the energy shift,
but without a supportive government, durable legal frameworks
and rule of law, any meaningful change is significantly hampered.
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan from Center for Near and
Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) of Philipps-Universität Marburg
presented his study of the moderating role of political institutions in
the air pollution-economic development nexus in the MENA region,
according to which the MENA countries can significantly deal with
the negative externalities of economic growth for environment by
investing in their democratic institutions.
The discussion also tackled how we can connect best practice models and that foreign aid in Egypt is not always conducive to building
an RE framework because it leads to a scattered landscape of different projects funded by different groups.
© Michael Asaad
Figure 3: Inspecting the solar panels on the roof of OASIS during the Fieldtrip ahead of the
conference
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the world’s oil and 41% of the gas used worldwide, the large-scale
deployment of renewables is bound to reshape regional politics.
Saudi Arabia’s role is likely to diminish on the international scene
with the integration of a large RE component in the region’s energy
mix. Sedky believes that Germany, the country of the most revolutionary energy transition ‘Energiewende’, is the most advanced in
terms of RE geopolitics. He also believes that Desertec, a program
promoting large-scale deployment of wind and solar energy in the
world’s deserts, has been canceled due to geopolitical issues,
namely that a growing number of European States and stakeholders lost confidence in the Middle East’s ability to provide a large
chunk of its energy in a reliable way. The recent discovery of the
immense gas fields in the Mediterranean will also present a challenge to the adoption of RE in the region. On Egypt, Sedky expressed confidence that the country could become a massive producer of clean energy since very few other countries benefit from
such large, vacant swathes of cheap land and excellent sun radiation. Also, at the core of RE sources is their decentralized quality,
which means that the periphery would have an opportunity to develop — which in turn will grant them more independence. Sedky thinks
we need to spur a conversation on the adoption of RE, and to stress
that the current transition is much more than that: “It is an energy and
technological revolution, nothing less,” he said.
The reason why investments have been lagging behind is mostly
due to the risks. For example, 64% of banks are reluctant to invest in
the MENA region. Banks or any financial institutions face risks like
machinery obsolescence, building and technical risks, operational
risks, environmental risks, political and regulatory risks, market risks
and weather-related volume risks. According to Badr, “If we want
to ensure sustainability and increase the penetration of RE in the region, governments will need to work with the private sector to deal
with the risks associated and encourage investments.”
Session 4: Bridging the Gap: Academia
Collaboration in Energy Efficiency
and Industry
Several obstacles are hindering academic-industry collaboration
in Egypt, including the economic downturn and political instability,
which shrunk R&D budgets at many companies as well as investor
confidence, according to Dr. Adel Khalil of Cairo University’s Faculty of Engineering. Financial instruments, legislation, market enhancement and infrastructure development are all needed to encourage
industry and investors in renewable energy, he said. Investors also
have complaints about the Feed-in-Tariff scheme introduced earlier
this year and how it will be implemented and guaranteed.
Rebuilding trust between the government and large and small investors is a crucial first step, which would be supported if Egypt made
a clear, official vision for the energy mix and development over the
next few decades, said Wael El-Nashar, CEO of Onera Systems,
a need also reiterated by several other experts.
When those barriers to investment are removed, industries will be
more likely to invest in research with universities and projects like
the Egyptian Renewable Energy Cluster Initiative, which Dr. Khalil
coordinates. The cluster is still in its conception and planning phase.
© Michael Asaad
Figure 4: the audience of the conference chose between parallel sessions
Dr. Ahmed Badr, Director of the Regional Center for Renewable
and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE) gave an abundance of information
in his presentation about how various countries in the MENA fare
in terms of RE integration and the schemes that are being used to
foster RE projects.
“Overall, the current installed capacity in the MENA countries is far
below the targets defined by the governments,” said Badr. Nonetheless, several countries have adopted ambitious policy frameworks
to encourage the deployment of renewable energy projects in the
region, which Badr sees as a promising development. Morocco
now uses IPP public competitive bidding, Algeria just introduced a
FiT, Egypt uses different mechanisms (FiT, merchant scheme and IPP
public competitive bidding), and Jordan started a direct proposal
submission and initiated its competitive bidding process. According
to Badr, almost 50% of Arab countries have public financing channels for RE projects. Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia
have created public funds for RE development, and two countries
created state-backed private sector companies to invest in RE projects: the UAE with Masdar city and SIE in Morocco.
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Technical University Munich already benefits from a geographic
cluster of many businesses and research institutions surrounding the
university’s several campuses and has developed strong partnerships in recent years. However, even at German universities such
robust industrial-academic cooperation is a recent development,
according to Dipl. –Ing Kordula Schwarzwalder, Project Coordinator of “The NeXus of Water, Food, Energy” at the university. She
suggested one way to foster trust and stronger ties is to recruit industry professionals to supervise masters’ degree candidates.
In addition to advanced degrees, more technical training programs
are needed in Egypt, where there is an abundance of engineers but
a shortage of technicians to meet industry needs.
Prof. Dr. Ehab Abdel Rahman presented the drawbacks and advantages of various forms of energy including financial and environmental costs, concluding that concentrated solar power is the most
advantageous and efficient form of renewable energy to invest in
for the future, however he stressed that each country should maintain a diverse energy mix to guarantee supply continuity.
Session 5: Innovative Concepts
Despite Variable Energy Infeed
for
Network Stability
On the technical side, experts addressed the challenges of integrating RE into the grid without overburdening the system.
Prof. Dr. Ahmed Hamza H. Ali, Mechanical Engineering Department of Assiut University, emphasized the importance of solving issues that will arise from the variable nature and unstable frequency/
voltage of wind and solar power before installing large RE projects.
© Michael Asaad
Figure 5: Summarising their sessions, the chairs conclude the conference with an overview of the speakers‘ statements.
He is working on a master plan which considers the extension of
power capacity mix and distribution to ensure the quality of the
power supply.
Dr. Bernhard Wille-Haussmann, head of Energy Management and
Grids Group at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, said
smart grid technology and grid planning also needs to be modified when RE is incorporated. A master plan provides the umbrella
framework and then other things need to be incorporated like a
smart grid system. Another issue he addressed was that battery
system installation is already competitive but will not necessarily be
welcomed by grid operators because they cannot control a distributed supply system.
Focusing on the demand side, transmission and distribution, one of
the biggest challenges for Egypt and MENA is the dust in the air.
Despite the wealth of solar radiation, panel efficiency is significantly
decreased when coated by dust, and technical or HR solutions
need to be developed to local conditions to deal with such complications. Technical solutions can be costly and adaptation is a
challenge because it is a learning process that involves a lot of
testing in local conditions. Even with investments in time and money
to create viable solutions, market technology will likely change after
a few years, requiring new trials and adjustments.
Focusing on the transmission grid side, Dr. Majeed Adul-Hameed,
Power System Engineering Specialist for Siemens S.A.E, presented
the challenges faced by the Electrify Grid when required to integrate large renewable power stations. Mainly these challenges are
attributed to the variability, availability of energy and controllability.
These problems affect the network stability in different ways. Manufacturers are developing new technologies and solutions to alleviate the stability problems associated with integrating large-scale
renewable resources into the grid. These technologies and solutions
required the grid operator and manufacturer to carry out various
studies to define optimum solutions comply with the Grid Code.
When it comes to grid codes, which are already in place in Egypt,
the issue becomes application. Regulation is complicated when you
have several power suppliers and becomes even more so if you
have supply, transmission and distribution separated as in Egypt.
The country’s regulatory authority has a qualified team, but one action point suggested in the discussion about grid management was
that the authority needs more power to act and apply the capacity
of its staff, said Session Chairman and MED-ENEC Team Leader for
the EU/GIZ Dr. Kurt Wiesegart.
Conclusions
Several countries in the MENA region have recently adopted ambitious policy frameworks to encourage the deployment of renewable
energy projects for residential, commercial and industrial applications. The introduction of the Feed-in-Tariffs in many Arab countries
has opened the renewable energy market to the private sector,
which is further encouraged to invest in light of a regional tendency
to phase out fuel subsidies, which have previously hampered RE
competitiveness.
The price of RE technologies continues to go significantly lower,
and experts believe that PV should provide the cheapest energy in
the future and become a multi-million dollar industry. It was widely
agreed that energy efficiency must go hand-in-hand with RE development and energy strategies.
There are still many challenges to achieving a large-scale penetration of RE technologies on the market: high initial investment cost,
the variable quality of the technology locally available, the lack of
demonstration sites and the less attractive tariffs for smaller scale
applications. A clear energy mix target is also needed, as well
as strong and durable legislative support and policy frameworks,
and cooperation between governments and the private sector to
reinforce trust and lift the risks associated with investing. RE also
would benefit greatly from more collaboration between academics
and industry professionals, particularly in Egypt where the economic downturn and political instability has reduced the budget in R&D.
On the technical side, one of the biggest challenges at hand is to
cope with the large amount of sand in the air, which enormously
reduces solar panel efficiency, and site-specific solutions need to
be found.
Experts concurred that Egypt is making progress, but many questioned whether increasing the RE energy share from less than 1%
of the energy mix to the 20% by 2020 national goal is feasible.
Renewable energy growth and development is inevitable, but countries need to maintain a diverse energy mix to guarantee continuous
and stable supply from a variety of sources.
7
Social Benefits of Renewable
Energies
Dr. Sebastian Helgenberger heads
the Transdisciplinary Panel on Energy
Change (TPEC) at IASS (Institute for
Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V.).
Throughout his activities Sebastian
Helgenberger has been committed
to advancing and experimenting with
the transdisciplinary and transformative potential of science and research
to accompany societal change.
Creating the Environment for Societal
Ownership – Lessons learned from
Germany’s Energiewende
by Sebastian Helgenberger
Boosted by impressive technological innovation and cost reductions, renewable energy in a growing number of countries is now
primarily considered for its social and economic benefits. Among
these benefits are opportunities for local value creation, for responding to growing energy demands and for reducing conflicts
over scarce water, which are aggravated by fossil power generation. Allowing for distributed electricity generation, the rapidly expanding renewable energy world is opening up business models
for many, including citizens and citizens’ cooperatives. Domestic
energy policy can shape the enabling environment to seizing the
social benefits of renewable energy in countries like Egypt.
Renewable Energies – A Multi-benefit Opportunity
Rapid technological innovation and substantial cost reduction, particularly for photovoltaic (PV) systems and wind power over recent
years are opening up new opportunities for countries like Egypt.
Renewable energy has been developing as a true multi-benefit
system, offering economic, social and ecological advantages, as
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its most
recent assessment report has pointed out on numerous occasions
(for an analysis see Jänicke et al. 2015). The costs for solar PV
panels have dropped by an impressive 75% in less than 10 years
(Wirth 2015). For wind power the cost decrease already started
earlier, making it the cheapest renewable energy source in many
regions, with costs continuing to drop. As a result, fossil energy
sources are losing their cost advantage over solar and wind, making renewable energy the cheapest source for electricity generation in an increasing number of countries worldwide (BNEF 2015,
IEA 2015), even without accounting for the considerable external
long-term costs of climate change and environmental degradation.
The old energy world, dominated by conventional power plants
and based on fossil energy sources (coal, lignite, gas and oil) or
nuclear, is characterized by large-scale projects with substantial
planning horizons, not least regarding meeting security standards
in nuclear power generation. In the emerging new energy world,
renewable energy production is characterized by distributed
power generation and smaller-scale projects with typically much
shorter planning horizons (Quitzow et al. 2015), which allows
for quicker responses to growing energy demands in countries
like Egypt.
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In Germany, as well as in other countries, renewable energy innovations have opened up an entirely new job sector based on technology development, production, installation and maintenance
(IRENA 2015, for a case study on Egypt see Vidican 2012). Also
in this regard, distributed power generation, through smaller-scale
projects, is closely connected to a regionally distributed economic
value creation and job sector development. An additional aspect
of local value creation is linked to the emergence of citizens as
renewable energy producers and energy providers. About 47% of
the overall installed renewable energy capacity in Germany as of
2013 — adding up to an installed capacity of 33.5 GW, roughly
comparable to Egypt’s overall installed power generation capacity — is in the hand of citizens, mainly through privately owned solar rooftop systems and citizens’ wind farm cooperatives (trend.research / Leuphana 2013). Those projects provide approximately
1.6 million Germans with additional income or reduced spending
for external electricity.
In the face of increasing resource conflicts over water, the high
water demand of fossil and nuclear power generation for essential
cooling systems are a severe threat to sustainable and secure power generation (Röhrkasten et al. 2015). Against this background,
particularly solar PV and wind power offer water-saving electricity
supply and reduce local water stress. Given the projected climate
change impacts on particularly vulnerable regions like Egypt, this
social benefit of renewable energy might even become more important in the decades to come.
Creating
the
Environment
for
Societal Ownership
Citizens, local businesses and bottom-up initiatives for local renewable energy production have been game changers in the
domestic energy economies of countries including Germany and
Denmark (cf. Gotchev 2015). In contrast to established energy
companies and their prevailing business models, these new players were much quicker to make use of the emerging economic
opportunities presented by renewable energy. As a result, renewable energies in these countries enjoy a broad financial ownership, which not only drives the Renewable Energy market but also
distributes economic returns across society (Jacobs et al. 2014).
Adding to sustainability motivations, such as preserving a livable
and nurturing environment with a good quality of life for current
and future generations, rapid innovation and cost reductions in renewable energy technology resulted in many new players entering
and shaping the energy market. In retrospect, this impressive development in Germany and other countries, was facilitated by a
number of enabling factors that created the environment for societal
ownership of Renewable Energy. Creating investment security, developing financing routines and building trust with respect to renewable energy were among the key factors of creating an enabling
environment (cf. IRENA 2015).
With its Renewable Energy Act in the year 2000, Germany opened
up the electricity market and created investment security and business opportunity for many through two main facilitating factors; first,
it assured that Independent Power Producers (IPP) would be able to
sell all their generated electricity to the market by guaranteeing grid
access and granting grid priority for these new producers. Second,
the combination with fixed Feed-in tariffs for power produced, guaranteed for 20 years, made the return of investment calculable and
reliable. This, in turn, also motivated financial institutes to provide
IPP with loans to start their businesses. Long-term national targets for
renewable energy capacity also sent important signals about the
scope of this new sector and its expected growth.
In 2015, providing loans for solar PV rooftop facilities and other renewable energy projects have become routine for German banks,
based on the investment security granted. These financing models
and routines, however, certainly did not emerge overnight (see e.g.
Degenhart & Schomerus 2008). Furthermore, they are closely connected to the specific characteristics of the national banking sector
and require active learning processes on the side of the financial institutes and on the side of the IPP as client. Trust building with respect
to renewable energy not only as a reliable energy source, but as
a business model is a key component in this process of developing
financing routines. A strong political backing of this process through
the creation of investment security and support for small businesses
and private households as IPP and key players of renewable energy deployment can contribute to trust building.
Concluding Remarks: Seizing
Renewable Energy
the
Social Benefits
of
Renewable energy has emerged as a multi-benefit system, combining ecological necessities like climate change mitigation with
social and economic opportunities. Local value creation based on
technology development, production, installation and maintenance,
increasing energy access in a timely manner and reducing resource
conflicts in a water-constrained world are among these opportunities.
An increasing number of countries are showing awareness of these
opportunities and are amending their national energy policies to
reflect that and redirecting efforts to actively pursue and shape
the new energy world based on renewable energy. As a consequence, an increasing number of countries, including Egypt, have
started to phase out considerable fossil energy subsidies, which
not only releases national energy markets from economically and
ecologically unsound cost distortions, but also allows governments
to reallocate spending to other areas.
References:
BNEF, “New Energy Outlook 2015 - Powering a changing world”. Bloomberg
New Energy Finance, 2015
Degenhart, H. & Schomerus, T., “Business opportunities through the financing of
renewable energy installations in Germany”. Leuphana Working Paper Series in
Business and Law, Lüneburg, 2008.
Gotchev, B., “Market integration and the development of wind power cooperatives
in Denmark. Lessons learned for Germany”, Institute for Advanced Sustainability
Studies, Potsdam, 2015.
IEA, “Projected costs of generating electricity” International Energy Agency –
OECD, Paris, 2015.
IRENA “Renewable energy prospects: Germany”, REmap 2030. A renewable
energy roadmap, International Renewable Energy Agency, 2015, http://www.
irena.org/remap/, Access: December 15, 2015.
Jacobs, D. et al., “Civic participation and cost efficiency”, IASS Study, Institute for
Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, 2014.
Jänicke, M., Schreurs, M. & Töpfer, K., “The Potential of Multi-Level Global Climate
Governance”. IASS Policy Brief. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies,
Potsdam, 2015.
Quitzow, R. et al. “The Future of Africa’s Energy Supply: Potentials and Development Options for Renewable Energy”, IASS Study, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, 2015.
Röhrkasten, S., Schäuble, D. & Helgenberger, S. “Secure and Sustainable Power
Generation in a Water-Constrained World”, IASS Policy Paper, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, 2015.
trend.research / Leuphana, “Definition und Marktanalyse von Bürgerenergie in
Deutschland”, Report to Agentur für Erneuerbare Energien, 2013.
Vidican, G., “Building Domestic Capabilities in Renewable Energy. A case study of
Egypt.”, German Development Institute, Bonn, 2012.
Wirth, H., “Recent facts about Photovoltaics in Germany, October 2015 Update”,
Report from Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Germany, 2015.
DAAD Kairo Akademie
Further Training Opportunities for Egyptian Academics
Established in 2011 the DAAD Kairo Akademie is an interdisciplinary training academy, offering a cluster of training modules to postdocs, alumni, scholarship holders as well as for academics in general.
Module topics range from traditional areas like “Proposal Writing”, “international Networking” to soft skills like “Effective
Time Management” or “Teambuilding”. During the one day modules, groups of about 25 participants receive intensive
training on the selected subject.
Modules take place in the DAAD Cairo Office in Zamalek, or directly in universities and research institutions; participation is free of charge.
Visit us at http://dka.daadcairo.org
Meet the DWZ Members
The German Academic Exchange Service
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is the world’s largest funding organisation for the international exchange of students
and researchers. Since it was founded in 1925, more than 1.9 million scholars in Germany and abroad have received DAAD funding.
It is a registered association, its members are German institutions of higher education and student bodies. Its activities go far beyond
simply awarding grants and scholarships. The DAAD supports the internationalisation of German universities, promotes German studies
and the German language abroad, assists developing countries in establishing effective universities and advises decision makers on
matters of cultural, education and development policy.
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading organization for applied research in Europe. Its research activities are conducted by 67
institutes and research units at locations throughout Germany. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft employs a staff of 24,000, who work with
an annual research budget totaling more than 2.1 billion euros. Of this sum, more than 1.8 billion euros is generated through contract
research. More than 70 percent of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s contract research revenue is derived from contracts with industry and
from publicly financed research projects. International collaborations with excellent research partners and innovative companies around
the world ensure direct access to regions of the greatest importance to present and future scientific progress and economic development.
Zentralstelle für das Auslandsschulwesen
With about 90 employees and 50 consultants, Zentralstelle für das Auslandsschulwesen (ZfA) supervises school-related work abroad.
Worldwide about 1000 schools are being supported financially and staff-wise. These include over 140, mostly private, German
schools abroad.
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation promotes academic cooperation between excellent scientists and scholars from abroad and
from Germany. Its research fellowships and research awards allow scientists and scholars from all over the world to come to Germany to work on a research question they have chosen themselves together with a host and collaborative partner. The Foundation’s
network embraces well over 26,000 Humboldtians from all disciplines in more than 130 countries worldwide - including 49 Nobel
Prize winners.
Freie Universität Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin is one of Germany’s universities of excellence and an international network university. Among its 29.000 students
and 4800 doctoral candidates roughly 17% come from abroad. The Latin words veritas, justitia, and libertas, which frame the seal of
Freie Universität Berlin, stand for the values that have defined the academic ethos of Freie Universität ever since it was first founded, in
December 1948. In order to support the university’s researchers and students in reaching out internationally, Freie Universität maintains
a worldwide network of liaison offices..
Technical University of Munich
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe’s leading research universities, with more than 500 professors, around
10,000 academic and non-academic staff, and 39,000 students. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and
creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as
Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006 and 2012 it won recognition as a German
“Excellence University.” In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany.
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Philipps-Universität Marburg stands for close involvement with recognized research groups, a student body that graduates faster than
average, and exemplary support of young scholars and researchers. The university, which has been established more than 500 years
ago, today counts around 26,500 students offering 21 faculties for 29 bachelor and 49 master study programs next to programs with
state examination like medicine, dental medicine, pharmacy, law, and religious studies. Philipps-Universität Marburg is top-ranked in
various disciplines and with its 11 Leibniz prize winners it is the leading institution for research in central Germany.
Technische Universität Berlin
With almost 31 000 students, circa 100 course offerings and 40 Institutes, the historic Technische Universität Berlin is one of Germany’s
largest and most internationally renowned technical universities. Located in Germany’s capital city – at the heart of Europe – outstanding achievements in research and teaching, imparting skills to excellent graduates, and a modern service-oriented administration
characterize TU Berlin. The range of services offered by our seven Faculties serves to forge a unique link between the natural and
technical sciences on the one hand, and the planning, economics and social sciences and humanities on the other.
Orient-Institut Beirut
The Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) is an academic research institute focusing on the Arab region and the wider Middle East. The OIB was
established in Lebanon on the initiative of the German Oriental Society in 1961, and has been part of the Max Weber Foundation –
German Humanities Institutes Abroad since 2003. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Since 2009,
the OIB also has an office in Cairo. The OIB publishes three series, Bibliotheca Islamica (BI), Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS), and
Orient-Institut Studies (OIS). BI is dedicated to the critical edition of mostly Arabic manuscripts, while BTS and the online series OIS are
dedicated to the study of the history, society, politics and literature of the region.
Business Models for the Diffusion
of Solar Technologies in Egypt
by Michael Stephan
Introduction
Egypt has a privileged degree of solar irradiation and offers indisputably high potential for the generation of solar energy. However, currently far less than 1% of the energy supply in Egypt is
generated from solar sources. The vast majority of energy supply
comes from conventional, fossil fueled power generation systems.
Many regulatory barriers prevent the diffusion of renewable energy technologies in Egypt, including fossil fuel subsidies and market
entry barriers for non-public power producers. Instead of calling
for policy measures and regulatory reforms, the present paper
takes the non-favorable regulatory environment for renewable energy supply in Egypt for granted. The paper portrays strategies
and business models for the diffusion of renewable energy technologies within the existing infrastructure and regulatory environment.
The focus is on solar technologies including photovoltaic systems
(solar PV) and solar thermal systems (TS) for water and space
heating. Given the regulatory conditions mentioned above, the
paper centers on a selected lead market for the diffusion of solar
technologies that offers scale economies and mass market potentials for commercialization of off-grid solar power supply, which
is not affected by the regulatory environment. The focus is on solar energy in the built environment, which covers private housing,
industrial facilities, and private and public office buildings. The
underlying hypothesis of the present paper is that the built environment in Egypt, especially in metropolitan areas like Alexandria,
Cairo, Giza, Port Said, Shubra el-Kheima and Suez, as well as in
holiday areas and tourist resorts like Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh
or El Gouna, offers rich opportunities for decentralized and offgird implementation of solar energy generation capacities.
Background: The Energy Market
in
Egypt
Egypt represents the biggest energy market in the MENA region.
Although the natural preconditions for using renewable energy
are promising, 94% of total primary energy consumption in Egypt
still comes from fossil fuels, according to the Regional Center for
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE 2013). Similarly, the current situation in energy supply is focused on fossil
fuel; 89.2% of the installed capacity for energy generation (in
total 32,293 MW) comes from conventional, fossil fueled power
stations (NREA 2015). Only 10.8% (3,488 MW) of the energy
Prof. Dr. Michael Stephan is Professor for Technology and Innovation
Management at Philipps-University
Marburg where he is also managing director of the Marburg Center
for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Research. Prof. Dr. Michael Stephan
studied Management and Economics
in Germany and Switzerland.
supply is generated by renewable sources. More than 80% of
the renewable energy generation is contributed by hydro power
plants (2.809 MW) and 16% by wind energy (550 MW). Currently, only 129 MW of solar energy generation capacities are
installed, which accounts for 3.7% of the renewable energy sources and 0.4% of all installed energy supply sources in Egypt (NREA
2015; RCREEE 2013). The vast majority of those solar energy
sources in Egypt are small-scale off-grid PV systems.
However, the government aims to diversify the energy mix in favor
of renewable energy resources and has set a target to achieve
20% of generated electricity from renewable energy by 2020.
Part of the plan in this context is to increase the installed PV and TS
capacities to 220 MW by the end of the decade (NREA 2015;
RCREEE 2013).
Regulatory Environment and Barriers for Renewable
and Solar Energy Production in Egypt
The shift toward renewable energy in Egypt is still hindered by fossil fuel subsidies and the dominance of the public sector in energy
generation that focuses on conventional fueled power generation
systems. However, in recent years a number of measures have
been adopted to help diffuse renewable energy production. The
major public institution for renewable energy affairs is the New
and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) of the Egyptian Ministry
of Electricity and Energy. NREA is both the project developer in
the public sector and the regulator of renewable energy projects
in the private sector. The vast majority of Egypt’s power generation (about 93% of the installed base) is from public sources. Private power producers — so-called “Independent Power Producers
(IPP)” — account for only 7% of the total energy supply (RCREEE
2013). Most IPPs generate electricity from conventional sources.
Only 120 MW (3.5%) of the power generation capacities of
IPPs are based on renewable energy. In principle, the Egyptian
legal framework does allow private self-generation of renewable
energy and allows private renewable energy producers to feed in
excess electricity to the grid with possibility of taking it back later
when needed. The surplus electricity generated is discounted from
the balance through the net-metering process. IPPs have to be
certified by NREA, which allows for on-grid PV and other solar
technology systems less than 500 kW. Ø
11
The installers of PV and other solar technology systems have to
prove their capabilities to design, install, operate and maintain solar
energy generation systems to NREA (NREA 2015). NREA is supporting investments in solar energy generation systems by private
power producers through incentives such as customs duty exemptions on imported equipment needed to set up RE facilities (RCREEE
2013). Given the regulatory constraints and incentives, there is obviously commercial potential for investment in off-grid and on-grid
solar power systems on a small scale.
Built Environment: Lead Market
Solar Energy Systems in Egypt
for the
Diffusion
of
Which markets and business models are appropriate for the diffusion of solar technologies in Egypt? Given the regulatory framework for solar energy generation, off-grid and excess-only-feed-ingrid solutions mark a frictionless and feasible way to diffuse solar
technology in Egypt. Which areas of application offer scalable
opportunities for such a frictionless installation of these solutions? In
other developed and developing countries the built environment has
proven to be such a lead market, especially under similar regulatory
conditions.
The built environment covers residential, public, commercial and
industrial building infrastructure. The built environment presents a
large opportunity for reducing CO2 emissions in a cost-effective
manner using decentralized solar energy generation systems. About
40% of the national final energy consumption takes place in existing
buildings, and buildings account for about 24% of global CO2
emissions (ECN 2012). In Egypt, the metropolitan areas of Alexandria, Cairo, Giza, Port Said, Shubra el-Kheima and Suez, as well
as holiday areas and tourist resorts in Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh
and El Gouna, offer enormous potentials for the installation of offgrid and small scale on-grid solar power generation systems in both
existing and scheduled building projects.
From an economic value chain-perspective the built environment is
a multifaceted ecosystem with various actors and stakeholders who
may be directly involved in investing in solar energy systems: building developers, investors (i.e. building owners), occupiers, suppliers
and manufacturers; architects; construction engineers; contractors
and craftsmen (ERCN 2012; RCREEE 2013). In many developed
and developing countries (solar) energy service companies have
takenresponsibility for the set-up and management of solar energy
power generation systems in the built environment (ERCN 2012).
Renewable energy service providers can act as system integrators
that offer integrated services for all kinds of stakeholders involved.
Renewable Energy Services
Energy Systems in Egypt
for the
Diffusion
of
Solar
of
Renewable Energy Service
Renewable energy services represent a new category of business
models that help to diffuse solar energy systems in the built environ12
1) RE Information Service Providers: RE Information service providers are consultants that conduct feasibility studies and support the
clients — notably architects, building developers, and investors (i.e.
building owners) — in finding and selecting appropriate solar power
generation and storage systems. The revenue of the information service provider can either be a lump-sum or variable payments (e.g.
as a percentage of the savings of the client).
2) Financial Service Providers for Renewable Energy Investments:
Financial service providers can either be banks or leasing firms that
specialize in the financing of solar power generation and storage
systems.
3) RE Installation and Maintenance Service Provider: By order of
the client the service provider installs the solar power generation
and storage system. In addition to turn-key solutions, the service
offer also includes maintenance and repair services throughout the
product life-cycle of the solar power system.
4) RE Supply Contractors: A solar energy service contractor supplies solar energy, in particular electricity, hot water or steam to
building owners (ERCN 2012). The supply contractor is owner
and operator of the solar power and storage infrastructure. The
client pays per use. The business model of supply contractors is
particularly well-suited for large residential and recreational areas
or industrial zones, where several buildings can be connected to a
local grid in which solar power is generated and stored on various
but connected sites.
5) RE Performance Contractor: The energy service offer by the RE
performance contractor is similar to the business model of conventional supply contractors. However, the revenue model is different.
The energy performance contractor guarantees the client energy
cost savings in comparison to a historical (or calculated) energy
cost baseline. In addition to a cost-efficient (pay-per-use) fee, the
performance contractor receives a performance-based remuneration for its savings guarantee. This business model is especially
attractive for RE clients since it guarantees cost savings over the
conventional power supply.
These business models are to be considered as archetypes. In practice, service companies can combine and bundle the various service packages according to their (technical) competencies and according to the needs of the clients. Business models for renewable
energy services are appropriate for both start-ups and established
firms in the energy, engineering and consulting industry.
Demand Side Perspective
Renewable energy service companies are service providers for the
relevant stakeholders in the built environment that offer integrated
energy services ranging from the provision of information and consulting, to identifying potential renewable energy efficiency measures, building and implementing them, and undertaking operation
and maintenance services and financing (see also ERCN 2012).
Supply Side Perspective: Business Models
Providers
ment. In recent years, a number of energy service business models
have proven to be both commercially viable (competitive) and ecologically productive.
of
Renewable Energy Supply
in
Buildings
The crucial question in a country with a regulatory and physical
environment like Egypt is which advantages do solar power systems
offer for building owners and operators over conventional power
supply? At least three “unique selling propositions” can be identified:
1) Financial advantages: Despite the current subsidies for fossil fuel
in Egypt, energy from solar sources is costless and the investment
costs for the set-up and maintenance of a local solar power system
will balanced in the long-run by cost savings from cheaper energy
by PV and other solar technology systems. The prices for PV and ST
systems have been falling over the last years due to heavy global
competition and low-cost producers of PV/ST equipment in China.
Since imports for renewable energy facilities enjoy customs duty
exemption in Egypt, the favorable world market prices for power
generation and storage hardware also benefit the Egyptian market. Business models like RE performance contracting could help to
make the financial advantages of power supply from solar sources
transparent.
2) Robustness and autonomy of solar powered systems: Given the
frequency of power outages in Egypt’s current supply system, standalone or complementary solar energy supply systems for the built
infrastructure offer continuity and security in power supply for the
users.
3) Reputational effects: Although “green technology” in energy
supply has not become a prevalent label in Egypt’s economy and
markets, so called “lead users” might take a reputational advantage
from employing solar power systems. Lead users can be found in
various categories of building owners including:
International organizations which are present in Egypt including the various embassies
Hotels in metropolitan areas and tourist resorts like Hurghada,
Sharmel-Sheikh or El Gouna
role. For them, ‘green’ building offers could create a unique selling
proposition in the market. In this business model a property developer or architect designs and constructs buildings certified according
to a voluntary ‘green’ certification scheme, expecting to realize a
sales price premium compared to conventional buildings (ERCN
2012).
Conclusion: Incentives and Opportunities
and Imperatives for Lead Users
for
Start-ups
Given the non-favorable regulatory situation for solar technology in
Egypt, the current paper has drafted archetypes of business models for renewable energy service providers. These business models
may help to diffuse solar technologies in Egypt, as they make the
green energy market more transparent and reveal the (competitive)
advantages of solar energy. The demand-side perspective has revealed the benefits of solar power systems for building owners,
which encompass more than just financial advantages. Lead users
in particular could benefit from the reputational effects of green,
solar technology. Finally it should be kept in mind that renewable
energy services and the corresponding business models offer large
economic and employment potential for both start-up companies
and established firms.
Subsidiaries of foreign multinational companies in Egypt
Innovation/technology-oriented Egyptian companies
References:
Home owners in premium residential areas
Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, “Business models for renewable energy
in the built environment”, Petten (NL), 2012.
Lead users and catalysts for the diffusion of solar technologies in
Egypt must also be identified in the construction value chain, particularly architects and building developers who can play a crucial
New and Renewable Energy Authority, “Renewable Energy in Egypt”, Cairo, 2015.
Regional Center for Renewable Energy And Energy Efficiency, “Egypt Country
Profile”, Cairo, 2013.
The Dialogues on Social Innovation (DSI) aim to provide a platform to debate the importance of different scientific disciplines and institutions in shaping our understanding of the world. In particular, we aim to highlight the contributions
of the Humanities and Social Sciences to assess and reflect processes of social innovation.
Each talk will be animated by contributions from two scholars and will leave sufficient time for debate.
Scholars from Egypt and Germany will present new developments in specific disciplines and institutions.
DSI are jointly organised by the Cairo offices of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Freie Universität
Berlin, and the Orient-Institute Beirut (OIB). DSI are open to students, researchers, and the wider public.
Light refreshments are served after the talks to continue the debate in a more convivial setting.
KarmSolar R&D Investment
Experience
by Ahmed Zahran
The prevalent business
models for local companies in Egypt focus
on premiums related to
trading, installations, assembly and sometimes
minimal manufacturing.
Those business models
almost constantly avoid
premiums that are based
on research and development (R&D). In general, R&D is regarded as
among the riskiest business activities and there
is not a lot of business
experience around R&D
monetization. During my
work for one of the major
business groups in the Arab World, the group CEO told me that he
did not wish to see a R&D expense line on the income statement of
the renewable energy subsidiary I was managing. After explaining
that R&D is not necessarily an expense and could be capitalized
if a proper product comes out of it and is successfully monetized, I
was told that this is not a priority for the group. I subsequently left
that group with the conviction that a new business model needed to
be introduced to the market, one that manages to successfully monetize a patent through proper R&D and product design. In 2011,
we established KarmSolar with the intention of designing and implementing a R&D-based business model and we started with solar water pumping. We monetized our first patent, from which we created
a strong stream of cash. We cannot say yet that it is a success story
because we still need to repeat our business cycle for three or four
more years to confirm that it is a successful model. However, we
could safely say that from our initial work over the past four years
that Egypt is an attractive place for R&D investment for the following
reasons:
KarmSolar is a solar technology and
integration company that delivers innovative solar solutions to the agricultural,
industrial, tourism and business sectors.
Since its founding in 2011, KarmSolar has been Egypt’s largest private
off-grid solar energy integrator, with
exceptional experience in developing
its award winning high-capacity solar
pumping stations, including the region’s
largest off-grid Hybrid Pumping & Irrigation System (147 kW). KarmSolar also
offers MW-scale off-grid solar energy
stations and grid-connected utility-scale
installations. Committed to R&D and
innovation, its goal is to commercialize
sustainability, enabling businesses to
gain from an increase in productivity
whilst benefiting from, and protecting,
the environment.
Availability of highly skilled engineers: The main component of
any successful R&D investment is talent. Some of the engineering schools in Egypt are among the best in the region and this
makes the recruitment process easier.
14
Ahmed Zahran holds a Master of
Science in Economics from the University of London, a Bachelor of Arts
in Business Administration & Finance
from the American University in Cairo and a Diploma from the European
College of Liberal Arts in Berlin in Philosophy & Literature. He is the CEO
and Co-Founder of KarmSolar.
Cost Competitiveness (salaries & equipment): The salary level in Egypt is not high, which enhances a company’s ability
to make good use of its investments and enhance the value
creation. Entrepreneurs usually look for the cheapest locations
globally to base their startups to make sure their resources can
last longer until they are able to scale.
Abundance of problems to be solved: The Egyptian economy
is currently going through a lot of efficiency problems which
had a substantial effect on public services. Each and every
problem is an economic opportunity for those who are able
to solve it.
It is, however, saddening how limited the investment in R&D is in
Egypt. It seems that most businesses do not realize the opportunity
and those who are aware of the opportunity are sometimes afraid
of the associated risk. The problem with R&D is the ability of a
company to monetize it, in other words, its ability to change the
R&D investment into a product that it can sell in the market with a
premium. An observation that I gathered from the market over the
past eight years about the companies I dealt with who do invest in
R&D is that their teams are mainly composed of talented engineers
with limited or no participation of commercially experienced people
to take the product to the market. It is usually this imbalance in team
structure that makes it difficult for brilliant engineers to produce great
products that fill a market need from their R&D.
The important question to ask now is how to revitalize the role of
R&D within the private sector in Egypt? And for that purpose I came
up with the following list, which I think could provide a reasonable
starting point:
Founders should make sure that their initial team structure covers the main needs of the company (technical, commercial,
financial). It is important to have founders covering the three
backgrounds to minimize the possibility of failure.
Companies embarking on R&D work should establish strong
relationships with academia to enhance their R&D abilities.
Universities have labs and resources that are not used in a
market-driven manner in Egypt. It is the private sector that can
provide universities with a unique opportunity to capitalize on
their available resources in a way that can constitute a new
source of income.
Business modeling should be given a priority while the company is growing. The role of R&D should be very clear within the
business model. Success and failure Key Performance Indicators should be indicated clearly to make sure a threshold for
the model revision can be established.
Higher premiums are associated with greater risk, and countries that
are interested in adding more value to their economies will have to
encourage their private sector to venture into R&D investment. There
are currently no government incentives for R&D investment in Egypt,
however, this should not be a deterrent to private companies to
invest in R&D, because the reward is worth it. It is unfortunate that
the investment climate in Egypt generally favors more risk-averse
businesses that are restricted to low value-adding sectors; it is our
role as entrepreneurs, however, to make it easier for new market
entrants to understand what it takes to have a viable R&D strategy.
Technische Universität Berlin Campus El Gouna
Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, established a satellite Campus in El Gouna to act as an academic hub and research
center at the Red Sea in Egypt. TU Berlin Campus El Gouna currently conducts the following advanced Master’s degree programs in Energy Engineering, Urban Development, Water Engineering, IT for Energy (coming soon) and Business Engineering
(coming soon).
TU Berlin Campus El Gouna was founded as a nonprofit Public-Private-Partnership. Teaching and research are conducted by
staff of TU Berlin and international experts under German regulations for higher education. The exceptional location of TU
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The Solar Energy Start-Up Scene
in Egypt
Insides from an Entrepreneur
by Yaseen Abdel-Ghaffar, Rana Alaa
The Energy Crisis
The word “energy” derives from the Greek words “en” and “ergon” which mean “in” and “work.” The meaning of the word fits
perfectly with the nature of energy as a phenomenon. As humans
trot this globe contributing to its technological advancement and
urbanization, they increase in number and work more. The larger
the number of people, the more energy they consume, for energy
is a vital commodity as essential as food and water. Furthermore,
energy is no stranger to the stress nexus where energy, food and
water resources are at a risk of falling short of rising demand.
Hence, it is without doubt that energy is and will always be in
demand, and a lot of high-density spots on Earth are suffering
from the downsides of an energy crisis. Egypt, being a developing
country with a notable population spurt, heads the curve of locations that suffer from an energy deficit.
The peak energy demand in Egypt is currently around 30,000MW
and the supply is a little over 26,000MW, leaving us with an energy deficit of 4,000MW, which results in frequent power cuts
in peak demand seasons. This deficit is not a mere hiccup but a
substantial problem, given the continuous increase in population
of around 1.6% intertwined with the inevitable rise in power demand. Not to mention, Egypt’s energy supply mix is heavily reliant
on unsustainable energy resources; about 88% comes from fossil
fuels while the remaining 12% is mainly hydropower from the high
dam. The country’s energy mix has not really earned the title of mix
as it is solely focused on conventional power sources despite the
abundance of other resources such as solar and wind.
Solar Energy Comes
to
Egypt
One of the most basic concepts in science is that the sun is the
ultimate source of energy for planet Earth. It took humanity quite
some time to land upon the Photo Voltaic (PV) technology, which
is a raw application of converting solar energy to usable electricity. It took the Egyptian government even longer to finally realize
16
Yaseen Abdel-Ghaffa holds a BSc in Chemistry from The American University in
Cairo and founded SolarizEgypt in 2013 where he currently holds the position
of Managing Director.
Rana Alaa holds a BSc in Electronic Engineering and an MSc in Environmental
Engineering from the American University in Cairo. She is the Co-Founder of
SolarizEgypt where she currently holds the position of Technical Director.
that the only way to attend to the energy crisis is to capitalize
on its renewable energy resources. Egypt has an average solar
irradiance of over 2,000 KWhr/m2, which is double the energy
produced from the sun in a square meter in Germany. This means
that installing a solar plant in Egypt would result in slightly less than
double the power production of a plant installed in most places
around the world.
The Egyptian government’s realization has prompted it to introduce the Feed-In-Tariff (FiT) program, encouraging investors and
entity owners alike to install solar power plants to sell electricity to
the government in return for fixed rates. The FiT program is targeting production of up to 2,300MW in the next two years.
The solar potential of the country begs the question why we didn’t
turn to solar energy from the start.d It was a common misconception that solar energy was too expensive and therefor infeasible.
This, however, is no longer the case since the Chinese found ways
to bring down the unit cost. The actual problem lies in the fact that
conventional electricity is almost free in Egypt because it isheavily subsidized by the government. This subsidy system, although
created for noble reasons, is unsustainable due to the massive
financial losses, not to mention the nation-wide energy crisis taking
its toll on the country’s productivity. The energy crisis finally pushed
the government to enact a subsidy removal plan in July 2014,
causing an increase in both electricity and fossil fuel prices meant
to prompt electricity and fossil fuel consumers to seek alternative
energy sources. Subsidy removal is focused on higher groups of
electricity consumers in the residential, industrial, and commercial
sectors who rely on grid electricity or diesel generators, both of
which would suffer from price increases.
The Birth
of an Industry
The announcement of the FiT and the subsidy removal programs
in late 2014 were perfectly synchronized to give birth to the
long-awaited solar energy industry in Egypt. Up until 2014, in-
dustry was underdeveloped with only a few companies focused
on off-grid technologies for remote areas and telecommunication
towers as well as solar water pumping applications.
In September 2014, the FiT program prompted the creation of
many new local solar companies. The New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) required companies to qualify for certification
in order to operate in the local market. Between November 2014
and May 2015, over 80 companies qualified for the certification,
most of which had just been created the month before. These companies range from start-ups to established corporations that decided
to enter a rising and lucrative industry. Businessmen created other
companies, with a quick exit strategy in mind.
A Case Study: SolarizEgypt
Given the local solar industry climate, you could say a solar energy
start-up in Egypt bears at least twice the weight of one elsewhere.
To put things in perspective, SolarizEgypt — founded by the authors
— would be a good case study to portray the challenges and appeals of operating in the ripe solar industry in Egypt.
On the international arena, the Egyptian FiT program attracted
flocks of international solar companies and investors that were more
equipped to cater to mega-watt scale projects. Unfortunately, the
local market can not yet handle these large-scale projects alone;
it simply has not had enough time to grow and develop, not to
mention that the capital needed to build such large plants is not
supported by local banks, investors, or solar companies.
SolarizEgypt was established in July 2013 by a couple of university
graduates who worked in the oil and gas industry and wanted to
go green. The team decided to focus on grid-tie solar systems in
hope that the subsidy removal rumors were true. They were also
strongly against off-grid solutions as they are over-priced and the
batteries give the system only a quarter of the lifetime of a grid-tie
system. SolarizEgypt was reliant on the government’s net-metering
program, in which a consumer would install a plant to consume
the power produced from the solar system and feed the extra into
the grid, ultimately using the gird as its battery bank. The first eight
months were spent learning, approaching clients and drafting proposals in an attempt to introduce the market to an alien energy
concept that had always been perceived as unfeasible.
It is also worth mentioning that the Egyptian FiT program is an inverted pyramid going against international norms in the sense that a
mega-watt scale project sells electricity to the government at higher
rates than the rates at which smaller solar installations would sell
a KWhr. This is absurd from an economic standpoint since larger plants have lower unit costs as they benefit from economies of
scale. However, the government’s intention was to attend to the
energy deficit as soon as possible and, accordingly, it put very
attractive rates for mega-watt scale projects to attract foreign investment and know-how to build solar plants.
SolarizEgypt targeted a three-part customer base: the luxury seekers who are willing to pay a little extra in order to gain energy independence and uninterrupted power supply; visionaries who see
a future in more sustainable sources of energy and understand the
cost and dangers of relying on unsustainable fossil fuels for energy;
and practical people who understand the effect of the subsidy removal program on their bills and are hence looking for solutions to
cut their bills. The first two projects were built for visionaries, one of
whom used the plant for self-consumption and the other intended to
use it for the net-metering program.
Integrating solar energy into the energy mix does have its limits. A
country cannot rely solely on solar to survive because storing solar
energy for night-use is still not technically or economically feasible
or efficient. Furthermore, the FiT programs are incentive programs,
which make them unsustainable i.e. they have a short life cycle. The
existing grid can also only handle a certain percentage of solar
input and remain stable. With these facts on the table, a considerable number of developed countries have no further room for solar
energy systems that are financially viable. Given limitations in markets that are approaching or have already reached their capacity
to incorporate solar for now, Egypt’s potential and solar irradiance
which is unparalleled in most places across Europe, makes the
Egyptian FiT program a magnet for international solar companies.
Ultimately, this makes it hard for a local industry to grow organically, which is a shame especially since the solar industry does not
require unique technical capacities.
Then came the government’s FiT program, which brought the
practical customer segment and with it the possibility of building
mega-watt scale projects. Not to mention, the flood of local and
international competitors who have more capital, employees and
resources than the start-ups. International competitors have the capacity and know-how to reduce unit costs due to the advantage
they have in gaining most of Egypt’s mega-watt scale projects. The
real threat would be that once they are established as mega-watt
scale plant providers, they would hunt down the local companies
and put them out of business with their massive capital, which allows
them to operate at a loss for longer periods of time.
Creating a start-up in Egypt is in itself an ordeal. One lacks the
knowledge on how to run a business, the investment capital, the
headquarters, the facilities, and in some case the technical knowhow. Start-ups in Egypt begin with an idea in the bag and the
weight of obstacles pulling them back. The paperwork and bureaucracy to start a legitimate entity, file taxes, rent an office, manufacture material, or import goods are tedious, vague and plagued with
administration. Very few start-ups make it through and those that do
are mostly food outlets or food support services.
SolarizEgypt tried approaching banks for funding and commercial
products to finance the capital-intensive solar systems. However,
they were met with resistance; the banking sector lacked the technical capacities required to evaluate the feasibility of the projects.
Additionally, the banking sector is extremely risk averse when it
comes to financing start-ups and usually requires at least financial
statements for three years of operation. Another hardship (shared
by many small businesses in Egypt) is the lack of availability of
U.S. dollars to secure payments for the components required from
abroad; which are an essential part of solar systems.
Despite the obstacles and hurdles that face a start-up in the solar
energy industry in Egypt, one must envision a future where solar
panels are as vital to a household as an air conditioner. The governmental systems are finally on the right track but the local industry
must never fail to lobby its suggestions and concerns to ensure more
effective legislations and an enabling ecosystem that supports local
businesses, opportunities, and talents.
17
The Benefits of Solar Energy in
Egypt
by Thomas Schlegl
The global PV market reached a yearly installation of approximately 40 GW in 2014. Although the PV market is transitioning from
government subsidies to market-based asset financing, all forecasts project significant and long-term growth. Primarily driven by
the increasing competitiveness of PV in electricity generation costs,
the PV market will undoubtedly grow to hundreds of billion dollars
per year in the near future. Even in Germany, not known as an
eminently sunny country, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)1
of PV has become more and more competitive. Today, the LCOE
of ground-mounted PV systems in southern Germany can be comparable to those of onshore wind turbines with less than 2,000 full
load hours because wind carries higher generation costs. Today,
they are already comparable to the LCOE of combined cycle gas
turbines (CCGT) and of the CO2 intensive technologies for hard
coal. As a semiconductor technology has a similar, strong learning
curve and cost development like computer chips or TV flat panel displays. Therefore, PV has the largest potential for significant
further cost reductions of all the existing energy technologies. By
2030 PV will be the cheapest option for electricity generation in
Germany along with onshore wind and lignite power plants, the
option that creates the most pollution. In sunnier countries the situation is even more favorable for PV. Today, in sunny countries lie
Egypt LCOE can be as low as 6 eurocents per KWh.
Fraunhofer ISE has assessed the learning rates of PV modules and
inverters and the situation of balance-of-systems (BOS) costs up
until 2015 to evaluate how PV system costs will develop in coming
years (they currently range from 930-1050 €/kWp). As the progress of PV modules and inverters in the learning curve depends
on market development, different market scenarios are given, from
very pessimistic to very optimistic. It should be noted that in the
past, even the most optimistic market forecast was too low. The
range of PV system cost is derived by combining minimal and
maximal assumptions regarding the market development, learning
1
The method of levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) makes it possible to compare power plants of different generation and cost structures with each other.
The basic thought is that one forms the sum of all accumulated costs for building
and operating a plant and comparing this figure to the sum of the annual power
generation. This then yields the so-called LCOE in Euro per kWh. It is important to
note that this method is an abstraction from reality with the goal of making different
sorts of generation plants comparable. The method is not suitable for determining
the cost efficiency of a specific power plant. For that, a financing calculation must
be completed taking into account all revenues and expenditures on the basis of a
cash-flow model.
18
Dr. Thomas Schlegl is head of the
strategic planning at the Fraunhofer
Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE
since 2005 and head of group “Energy System Analysis”. He is physicist
with professional experience in the
fields of semiconductor and solid
state physics with the focus on photovoltaics.
rate and BOS costs, resulting in a cost reduction of 270-600 €/
kWp by 2050, which represents a 40-70% decrease. Fraunhofer
ISE has developed a concept for a full integrated industrial cluster
for the development, production and application of PV power in
Egypt. With such a The concept for silicon based PV modules
leads to highly competitive costs for PV modules and solar electricity. Depending on the assumed discount rate, PV power plants
made in Egypt could generate electricity for 5.0-5.9 €cent/kWh
in 2018, with an additional decline in prices to 3.8-4.5 €cent/
kWh in the late 2020’s. No other technology is able to offer this
cost range.
For building up a successful PV ecosystem in a country, the installation of manufacturing facilities is just one part. There are many
essential stakeholders in PV who fulfill different tasks and have different requirements; manufacturers of PV components need to be
competitive, banks want security to guarantee a return on loans,
investors and insurance companies want to maximize the ROI
(yield) at minimal risk. PV system operators ask for high performance ratio and low maintenance efforts, grid operators for easy
grid integration, consumers want low costs at secured electricity
supply and the state seeks economic benefits and job creation.
Understanding the needs of stakeholders means the creation and
protection of jobs and leads to requirements which are related to
quality and system.
Quality-related requirements include high quality at competitive
costs, highly efficient and reliable PV systems, long-term stability
with minimal degradation and maintenance efforts and state-of-theart and bankable designs. To meet these requirements, Fraunhofer
ISE offers its customers quality assurance for utility-scale PV plants.
Even minimal performance losses at a multi-megawatt PV power
plant can lead to a significant loss of yield over its 20-30 year lifetime. Hence, banks, investors and insurance companies insist during the planning and design phase on a detailed solar resource
and yield assessment, a manufacturer quality benchmarking as
well as a module power and energy rating. During the installation
of the plant the modules have to be checked regarding their performance, reliability and material quality. During commissioning,
system and grid operators also require a final acceptance test,
the initial performance and safety verification and the PV plant
certification. Continuous, long-term performance reporting is es-
sential to a smooth operation, including on failures, optimization
and re-powering.
System-related requirements include optimal system integration of
PV power plants and an optimized grid expansion planning. The
optimization of the electricity system development has to comprise
local resources like solar insolation and wind speed, the existing
infrastructure of power plants and transmission capacities as well
as technical and economic data like demand forecasts, fossil fuel
prices, specifications of the individual technologies and the energy efficiency potential. The objective of states is at given security
of supply the most economic energy system. Taking into account
national value creation and positive job effects, not necessarily
only the cheapest energy technologies will considered. Ideally the
establishment of a local energy industry e.g. PV manufacturing is
fine-tuned with a long-term energy strategy. Local value creation
from BOS, including ground works, mounting structures, cables and
installation, can be realized rather easily. As the PV module will
amount to at least 50% of a PV system also in the distant future high
investments are necessary to create value over most parts of the
value chain. A national energy strategy can increase the security
of such investments and attract investors. In a growing number of
countries the electricity generation costs from PV are lower than
end-consumer prices. The attractiveness of producing electricity will
increase more and more, not only in off-grid areas, and will be
reinforced by increasing end-consumer prices. In some countries
with high electricity prices like Germany, there is a trend toward a
combination of PV systems with an energy storage component. By
using batteries the degree of self-consumption can be increased.
For countries with more frequent grid outages this is an option to
avoid power shortages and increase security of supply.
Photovoltaics is already today a highly competitive technology for
generating electricity, especially in sunny countries like Egypt. As
PV still has by far a larger potential for further cost reduction than
any other of the power generation technologies it will have a major
share in the electricity system of each country. Egypt will be able
to benefit from PV by producing electricity from national resources
instead of importing fossil fuels. Besides that, Egypt has the opportunity to create jobs along the whole value chain of PV manufacturing
not only for the local market but also for the export.
AREACORE –
The Arab-European Association for Media and Communcation Researchers
© Amin Louden
AREACORE aims to strengthen co-operation and expand horizons among Arab and European
scholars in the field of communication. In particular, it strives to facilitate communication research
across Arab countries and between Arab and European scholars. AREACORE organizes academic conferences, professional trainings and teaching workshops.
Join an expanding academic network! Find more information at: www.areacore.org
Integration of Renewable Power
Resources into National Transmission Grid:
Required System Studies and Solutions
by Majeed Abdul-Hameed Abdul-Hussain
Introduction
Generation of electricity on a large scale or in bulk is mainly
based on conventional fuels such as fossil fuel, water and uranium, with the largest share being fossil fuels (mainly coal, oil and
natural gas). Fossil fuel-based power stations share two distinct
characteristics;
Firstly the fossil fuel is a constantly depleted resource and secondly
the fuel negatively impacts the environment by producing harmful
gases.
© Michael Asaad
Dr. Majeed Abdul-Hameed worked
with Parsons Brinkerhoff as a Power
System Specialists where he participating in the rehabilitation of Iraq
Electricity Network and developing
the electricity master plan in 2010.
In 2015, Dr. Majeed joined Siemens-Egypt as a power system specialist to manage and develop a
Transmission Master Plan for the Electrical Energy Transmission Company
of Egypt.
The Grid Code, among various rules, lists the requirements for
connecting dependent or independent new power plants to the
network. These new power plants could be conventional or Renewable Energy (typically wind or solar) Depending on the capacity (MW), the connection voltage can be decided and larger
wind or solar plants will be connected to the transmission network
as connecting them to the distribution network may necessitate
prohibitive and large reinforcements.
Challenges
In addition to the above, fuel comes with a high price tag. These difficult problems prompted energy scientists and engineers to search
for alternative sources of energy that could produce electricity at
lower costs and were more environmentally friendly, which led to
the study and development of renewable energy sources including solar radiation, wind, water, geothermal energy and biomass.
Water has been utilized for a long time in hydropower plants on a
large scale, but is limited by the availability and continuity of water
flow from rivers and rain. Other resources have been utilized but at
varied scales, with solar and wind power proving to be the most
feasible and promising resources for power generation.
Connecting large-scale wind and solar power generation to the
transmission network poses many challenges to the TSO:
The main drivers for the development of renewable energy are
energy system decarbonization, long term energy security and
expansion of energy access to new consumers in the developing
world.
Stability of the RE plants when disturbance on the network
occurs.
National Electricity Network
A national electricity network is normally structured in three different
interconnected sectors: generation, transmission and distribution to
customers. The generation is based on large power plants for
economic reasons, and these are connected to the transmission
network at higher voltages to transmit to the distribution network at
lower voltages and finally supplied to customers. The generation
and transmission is normally operated by the Transmission System
Operator (TSO) who is equipped with rules and regulations on
how to operate the system reliably and safely. These rules and regulations are contained in a utility document called “Grid Code”.
Further Reading
http://www.energy.siemens.com
20
Wind and solar power are subject to natural variability in
their energy sources (variable wind speed and variable solar
radiation due to cloud cover, for example).
Varying availability and lack of predictability in some places
can pose difficulties for TSO in dispatching power plants.
Non-linearity of the connection to the grid due to the use of
power electronic devices such as inverters and converters;
these electronics produce harmonics which can be harmful
to the network.
Required System Studies
The TSO requires that the transmission network be stable and controllable as well as achieving an acceptable quality. The definition
of a stable network is to have both voltage and frequency vary
within acceptable limits when a disturbance or change is applied
to the network. Conventional power plants have well-established
control systems to regulate both voltage and frequency. Voltage is
controlled by an Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR,) which manages the electric field inside the generator which in turn controls
the stator output voltage and reactive power produced. Frequency control is achieved by controlling the steam input to the turbine,
which in turn controls the speed of the generator and effectively
the output active power. Both of the above control facilities are not
available with most RE plants such as wind or solar generation.
These deficiencies pose a challenge to connect large RE plants to
Figure 1: Reactive Power Capability
Figure 2: Fault Ride Through
transmission grids as new technologies and solutions still need to be
developed to control voltage and frequency.
Transient and Dynamic Performance: These studies cover assessment of RE (wind) plant dynamic behavior under system disturbances as well as the effectiveness of the control system ranging from
voltage (reactive power) control to pitch and power factor controls
for active power modification.
Normally, grid compliance studies are carried out prior to granting
a connection license.
Reactive Power Capability: The RE plant shall cover or exceed the
system reactive power requirement (Figure 1). The RE plant is normally equipped with a static reactive power compensator (SVC)
capable of fulfilling the requirements of the grid code.
Harmonic Performance and Flicker: Harmonics are generated by
the electronics used in the connection devices such as inverters or
converters. If any of the harmonics generated by the RE coincides with a resonance in the system at the connection point this
harmonic current can penetrate the network, causing problems.
Resonances are typically mitigated by incorporating a filter into the
connection.
Energization and Voltage Fluctuations: Voltage control can be
achieved by SVC (Static Var Compensator).
Fault Ride Through: This study is carried out to establish that the RE
plant will remain online during a fault in the network (Figure 2).
Further Studies: Other studies may be required by grid compliance
which may affect stability of the system, including dispatching and
forecasting of RE generation plants
Mitigations
For large and distant RE plants, utilizing High Voltage Direct
Current (HVDC) links to connect to the grid has been proven
to be the best solution for stability and other issues associated
with large-scale plants. Industry has made many advances in
this field of technology.
The use of a Full Scale Frequency Converter offers many advanced technologies which contribute to enhancing the stability and controllability of the grid connected RE (wind) plants.
Voltage control and reactive power compensation can be
achieved by SVC Plus®
Since late 2011, the Cairo Climate Talks (CCT) has been bringing together experts from Egypt, Germany and abroad to discuss current issues related to the environment, energy and climate change.
Every month, leading experts in the fields of either agriculture, climate negotiations, food, energy,
tourism, water, biodiversity, urban planning, transportation or waste convene for a day-long capacity-building workshop rich in presentations and discussions. A public panel with a selection of experts
is also organised, to bring awareness to a wider public of academics, students, and professionals.
The CCT has been initiated by the German Embassy, in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of
Environmental Affairs (EEAA), the German Science Centre (DWZ), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Egyptian German High Level Joint Committee for Renewable Energy, Energy
Efficiency and Environmental Protection (JCEE). For the past three years, a total of 35 high-end CCT discussions have been held, and the
popularity of this platform keeps growing.
For more information please visit our Facebook page “Cairo Climate Talks” our website www.cairoclimatetalks.net.
Smart Grid Technologies and Grid
Planning
NEMO: An Integrated Approach for Grid
Management & Planning
by Bernhard Wille-Haussmann
Motivation
In modern Smart Grids new consumers such as heat pumps (HP)
or electric vehicles (EV) change load behavior in combination
with decentralized generators. Often these new components are
combined with either electricity or heat storages which offer new
flexibility options for grid operation.
The key question for grid planning is which demand and generation
profiles should be used. While generation profiles for photovoltaic and wind are just defined by weather conditions, heat pumps
and EV could be operated in many different ways. Here several
scenarios to what extent demand side management (DSM) should
be applied are possible. Alternatively grid extension and reinforcement is necessary in order to fulfill all loading conditions. Reinforcement of the grid can be carried out traditionally by replacement
of cables and transformers. With the availability of modern Smart
Grid solutions, such as on load switchable transformers on the low
voltage side or reactive power control, further possibilities must
be taken into account. Uncertainty on the load and generation
side as well as the wide variety of potential solutions available
mean there are many possibilities to consider when grid planning.
Hence, there is a need for innovative modeling tools such as the
NEMO tool suite (http://nemo-project.eu), which is designed for
integrative planning and operation of electricity grids regarding
behavior of local loads, generators, and charging technologies.
Figure 1: Workflow of the NEMO Suite showing interaction between the tools.
22
Since 2010 Dr. Bernhard WilleHaussmann is head of the group
energy management and grids. His
main working field is the integration
of distributed generators and loads
into grids. The span reaches from grid
planning, control and operation management. For scheduling predictive
optimization algorithms are applied
to use thermal and electric storage
capacities for local and grid usage.
The NEMO tool suite starts with a new approach that combines
three existing simulation software instruments for market scheduling, efficient grid simulation, and grid extension. These tools enable the user to identify weak grid segments and to look for smart
and cost-effective measures to counteract such problems.
Nemo Tool Suite: An Integrated Modelling Tool
Grid Operators, Planners and EV Stakeholders
for
The simulation and optimization tool suite NEMO (Novel E-MObility grid model) is a combination of three professional tools: one
targets a combined techno-economic design, primarily modelling
plants on contracts or the spot market, at the same time participating in balancing markets (Fragaki/Andersen, 2011). The second
one is designed for simulation of grid components and technical
operation (van der Burgt et al 2010), while the third one is meant
to quickly discover potential conflicts of grid operation approaches through R-based load flow analysis (Wille-Haussmann 2011).
Figure 1 shows the workflow of NEMO starting with market-driven
operation of the single components. After applying grid analysis,
the solutions, demand side management and grid reinforcement
can be evaluated. The comparison of costs and effects on the grid
can be used to make decisions regarding upgrading the network.
The simulation flow will be controlled by the graphical user interface shown in figure 2. Here, the main settings are shown together
with the voltage range visualized using a heat map.
Figure 2: Graphical user interface of the NEMO-Suite showing the voltage range in the grid using
a heat map.
Nemo -- the project
EU professionals
combining the expertise of
Within the European research project NEMO (www.
nemo-project.eu), part of the ERA-NET Plus program “Electromobility+”, five project partners from The Netherlands (DNV
KEMA), Germany (Fraunhofer ISE) and Denmark (EMD,
RAH, RFVV) aim to manage the power grid in combination
with electro mobility.
References:
Fragaki/Andersen, “Conditions for aggregation of CHP plants in the UK electricity
market and exploration of plant size”, Applied Energy, Volume 88, Issue 11,
November 2011, Pages 3930-3940.
van der Burgt et al., “PLATOS – Planning tool for optimised storage”, 5th International Renewable Energy Storage conference IRES, Berlin, 22-23 November 2010.
Wille-Haussmann, B., “Einsatz der symbolischen Modellreduktion zur Untersuchung
der Betriebsführung im ‘Smart Grid’“, Dissertation, Fernuniversität in Hagen, 2011.
Kick-Off for the Egyptian German Water Cluster
© Michael Asaad
Under the auspices of the German Science Centre and
its partners, up to 30 water experts from Germany and
Egypt gathered in 2015 to launch the Egyptian German
Water Cluster.
The interest of building an issue driven network focusing on water
related research topics arose from the diversity of scientific projects
and initiatives located in the German Egyptian Research Landscape. The need for interdisciplinary exchange in the field of water
research becomes apparent through gained experience in the past
and prompted the establishment of an infrastructure that allows communication, cooperation and increased visibility of the projects and
people partaking. The cluster’s experts have continually pointed out
the importance of a joint database that simplifies exchange and
future cooperation. Thus, the German Science Centre (DWZ) has
created a common database for the representation of all the water
cluster’s members in order to ensure visibility and offer a platform
for information and research exchange. A website for the Egyptian German Water Cluster will enable a reliable research- and
expertise-oriented search engine to match potential cooperation
partner with one another and cluster mutual research interests and
questions. Furthermore, the website will be used to communicate
upcoming events, publications and funding opportunities.
With the Egyptian German Water Cluster its members and the German Science Centre hope to reach out to new and established
stakeholders, keep key players informed and jointly organise Capacity Building for fellow researches and students.
For more information please visit our website
http://water.dwz-kairo.de
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan received his PhD in Economics
in TU Dresden 2009 and became a
Junior-Professor of Economics of the
Middle East in Marburg from 2012
to 2015. Currently he is a full professor of Economics of the Middle
East at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) at the
Philipps-Universität Marburg.
Economic Development and Air
Pollution in the Middle East and
North Africa: Democracy Matters
by Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, Gunther Markwardt
The Middle East and North African (MENA) countries have had
high pollution records since 1965, exceeding the world average from 1995 onwards [WDI (2014)]. The MENA region has
around 57% of the world’s proven oil reserves and 41% of natural
proven gas reserves. About 85% of all greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions in this region come from energy production and consumption. The associated environmental problems are worsened
through heavy subsidies on petroleum products which encourage
excessive and inefficient use of fossil energy. According to the
International Energy Agency (2008), energy subsidies in the 20
largest non-OECD countries reached US$310 billion in 2007.
Eleven of 20 countries in the world that subsidized the gasoline
consumption were from the MENA region [Brown (2011)]. The
high energy intensity of the production and the wasteful consumption of fossil fuels is a natural consequence of such subsidies. The
existence of cheap energy hampers investments in clean technology and energy efficient means of transportation [see Ellis (2010)
and von Moltke et al. (2004)]. The IEA (2010) emphasizes that
phasing out fossil fuel subsidies is a crucial part of the climate
change mitigation package for the MENA region.
The economic costs of environmental degradation in the MENA
region are significant. According to the World Bank studies, these
costs range from 2.1% of GDP in Tunisia to 7.1% of GDP in Iran.
The important policy question is “... whether economic growth
should continue to be the main priority, with protection of the environment a secondary consideration to be addressed mainly in the
future, or whether explicit policies to control environment degradation at the local, national and global level are urgently required
today.” [see Barbier (1997)].
Another distinguishing feature of MENA countries in comparison
to developed countries is the stage of development of democratic
institutions. In general, the political and democratic institutions in
MENA countries are less developed. Many of the MENA countries are governed by autocratic regimes and the democratic participation of the people is rather low. This prevents the people from
exercising their preference for environmental quality and may result
in insufficient environmentally oriented policies.
However, in the last two decades a number of MENA countries
have significantly improved their democratic institutions. We measure political institutions by using Polity2 index (Marshall et al.,
24
2014). Polity2 scores are between -10 and +10. A +10 refers to
a ‘‘strongly democratic” state and -10 to ‘‘strongly autocratic”. For
example, Algeria improved its Polity2 score from -8 in 1965 to -2
in 2005, Iran from -10 to 1.2 and Jordan from -9 to -2 for the same
time span. More significantly, since the end of 2010 we are observing an ongoing political movement and revolutions in several
countries in the MENA region known as the “Arab Spring”. Some
countries in the MENA region such as Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have begun to modernize their political structure and open
themselves to democratic ideas. This modernization increases demand for more political engagement on the side of civil society.
Our research objective is to analyze the relationship between economic development, the stage of democratic development and
environmental degradation in the MENA region. Our sample consists of 17 countries during the period from 1980 to 2005. We
take five years’ average from the data to control for missing values
and data heterogeneity, which yields five periods. To explore the
income-pollution-institutions nexus in the MENA, we estimate the
following log-linear specification:
where countries are indicated by i; time is indicated by t; ED is
References:
Barbier, E. B., “Introduction to the Environmental Kuznets Curve”, Special Issue,
Environment and Development Economics 2, 1997, p. 369-381.
Brown, L.R., “World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic
Collapse”, W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 2011.
Ellis, J., “The Effects of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform: A Review of Modelling and
Empirical Studies”, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, Canada, 2010.
IEA, “World Energy Outlook 2008, International Energy Agency (IEA)”, OECD,
Paris, France, 2008.
IEA, “World Energy Outlook 2010, International Energy Agency (IEA)”, OECD,
Paris, France, 2010.
Marshall, M. G., Gurr, T. R., Jaggers, K., “POLITY™ IV Project Political Regime
Characteristics and Transitions”, Center for Systemic Peace, 2008, p.18002013 Available at: http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/p4v2014.xls Access:
December 15, 2015.
von Moltke, A., C. McKee, and T. Morgan, “Energy Subsidies: Lessons Learned
in Assessing their Impact and Designing Policy Reforms”, Sheffield: Greenleaf
Publishing, 2004.
World Development Indicators, “Word Development Indicators Online Database”, World Bank, Washington D.C., 2014.
the local or global indicator of air emissions, GDP is real GDP per
capita, DQ is the quality of democratic institutions, (GDP*DQ) is
the interaction of real GDP per capita and the quality of institutions,
Z is a vector of control variables which may affect the pollution.
Our main findings can be summarized as follows: We find evidence
for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for both CO2
and SO2 emissions. We notice that increasing the quality of democratic institutions can moderate the increasing negative externalities
of economic development for environment in the MENA region.
The moderating role of political institutions is in particular valid for
the case of local pollution (SO2). For global pollution (CO2), the
democratic development of countries seems to play only a minor
role. The improvement of democratic institutions and higher accountability of the government affect local environmental problems more
significantly than global environmental issues.
Eng. Ahmed Sedky is currently the
general manager of eim-energy, a
company focusing on designing,
developing and implementing sustainable energy generation systems,
predominantly focusing on solar and
hybrid technologies for off-grid applications.
The Geopolitics of
Renewable Energy
by Ahmed Sedky
Geopolitics is the scientific field of study belonging to both political geography and international relations, which investigates
the interaction between politically acting men and women and
their surrounding territoriality (in its three dimensions; physical-geographical, human-geographical and spatial).
The field of geopolitics has always been very interested in energy
questions since conventional energy sources such as oil, natural
gas and coal constitute physical-geographical variables of strategic importance. Within geopolitics, it is recognized that the energy regime of the global system and the energy relations between
producer countries, transit countries and consumer countries are
important variables which can influence international relations.
The location factor — where the energy resources are, and via
which routes they can be brought to (potentially rival) consumer
countries — constitutes an important area of study within the field
of geopolitics.
The ‘Geopolitics of (Conventional) Energy’ entails a whole literature in itself. Exploring and developing conventional energy (oil,
natural gas, coal) requires huge capital investments and a military
machine to control. Today, in an age of increasing scarcity, producer, transit and consumer countries are positioning themselves
geopolitically so as to safeguard their energy security.
Of course, energy and location in themselves do not explain
everything in international relations, otherwise one would lapse
into geographic or energetic determinism. But the way in which
© Michael Asaad
societies shape their energy mix is central to both their chances
for development and survival. Countries and areas which have energy and energy-related technologies at their disposal potentially
have better cards compared to other countries. Nevertheless all
countries, regions and areas are interconnected when it comes
to the complexity of energy relations, which translate into international-political relations and power dynamics. We know what the
geopolitics of conventional energy entails, and how it becomes
more prominent in times of resource scarcity.
But as countries move toward more renewable energy, their developing energy mixes will dictate their behavior and thus have a
profound effect on geopolitical relations. This leads us to try and
understand the relational patterns and behavior of these various
processes and find answers to the following important questions:
What trends and developments in countries‘ energy mixes or
energy relations can we see today?
To what extent is the geopolitics of renewable energy different or similar to that of conventional energy?
Renewable energy sources are often hailed as the universal solution for a large number of challenges associated with the use of
fossil fuels — and partly for good reason. However, while largescale utilization of renewables diminishes energy scarcity and lowers various kinds of pollution, its potential to address energy-related geopolitical tensions among producer, consumer, and transit
countries remains to be seen. Whereas the political implications
25
of the geographic and technological specificities of fossil fuels are
well known, there exists a great deal of uncertainty regarding the
economic and political implications of renewable energy systems.
Renewable energy has come into the picture in recent years as
a result of a number of combining factors and trends. First, the
previous decades have clearly shown that the burning of non-renewable, fossil fuels leads to CO2 emissions, the exhausting of
resources, local environmental degradation and climate change.
Second, population growth of a couple of billion people, particularly in Asia, structurally impacts energy demand, as a result
of which (conventional) energy scarcity could become a real
possibility in the coming decades. Markets impact these processes, although this has evolved sporadically in the past few years.
When the stock markets reflect the belief that a situation of scarcity and need is developing — as was the case in the summer of
2008 when a barrel of oil reached the staggering record price of
US$147 — then fossil energy prices in specific and energy prices
in general can multiply quickly, creating a volatile market. As a
result of this, renewable energy becomes more interesting and
economic in comparison to traditional forms of energy.
A few months later in 2008, when energy prices collapsed due to
the economic crisis, a reverse process seemed to develop in the
market, ultimately resulting in decreasing investments in renewable
energy. Such dynamics make the study of renewable energy within a broader geo-economical and geopolitical context extremely
difficult. Many variables are at play. Nevertheless, humanity will
have to make the transition toward more renewable energy if we
are to survive the century. The stakes could not be higher. Who
will be the winners, who will be the losers? And how will renewable energy reshape the global and macro-regional geopolitical
landscape?
Considerations
The great pitfall in a discussion on the geopolitics of renewables is that the discussion can go in any directions;
What considerations are to be taken into take into account?
Which steps to undertake to move from the geographical
factors of renewable energy sources to their geopolitical
implications in a structured and reproducible fashion?
What is the guiding reasoning behind any conclusions?
The insights which we have to develop should be based upon the
most recent studies and findings of the geopolitics of renewable
energy. We will need to make some important assumptions and
considerations and study the following in detail;
Define ‘renewable energy’ and illustrate the difference between ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’
Lay out some internal and external geopolitical consequences of the energy transition
Explain that the transition toward renewable energy in fact
entails an “energy technology-revolution” or ET-revolution
Provide a global, regional and national overview of the latest developments in renewable energy
Study the geopolitics of renewable energy in more detail
— We need to look at the global control over patents and
26
knowledge and investigate the potential of renewable energy sources and their geopolitical consequences
Analyze some current “mega-dossiers” in renewable energy
in the world and in particular Europe — Desertec and the
North Seas Countries Offshore Grid Initiative
Last but not least, we must try to formulate some conclusions
on the specificity of the geopolitics of renewable energy.
Conclusions
Countries which enjoy dominant positions in the conventional energy world (e.g. Saudi Arabia). will not necessarily enjoy the same
in a world in which renewables grow in importance. Eventually,
geopolitical relations across the globe could be affected. On
the other hand, the geopolitical dynamics could be similar with
increased RE and large projects will eventually suffer from very
similar security issues as traditional energy projects. One issue will
be where certain pivotal power lines will run and who will control
them. What about the physical security of these power lines? In
addition, the geopolitics of renewable energy will also create certain geo-technical opportunities and limitations. One of the major
problems countries will face concerns the rare earth materials that
are needed in the technological advances of renewable energy.
Rothkopf (CEO and editor of FP magazine) convincingly wrote
that the green geopolitical crises might look similar to those of the
conventional energy domain. There might be green protectionism
in the western world, but also the condition of oil producing countries might be problematic in a world where renewable energy is
growing fast, Rothkopf wrote in 2009.
In all probability, the geopolitics of conventional energy and that
of renewable energy will exist next to each other for a period of
several decades. Decision makers will have to be creative in trying
to cancel out the drawbacks of one source of energy with the
advantages of the other. In that sense, the geopolitics of energy
will become more complex, and will have to deal with a variety of
foreign policy, diplomacy and international security issues. Instead
of approaching this issue in inconsistent terms, one should rather
try to pursue more related approaches in the study of geopolitics,
power transitions and energy.
References:
Daniel Scholten, Rick Bosman “The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy” a Mere
Shift or Landslide in Energy Dependencies? White Paper; 2013;
David Criekemans, “The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy”, Exploring Geopolitics
Online Magazine, Accesible at: http://www.exploringgeopolitics.org/pdf/
Criekemans_David_Geopolitics_Renewable_Energy.pdf, Access: December 15,
2015.
© Scharger, Albert / TUM
TUM to introduce Massive Open Online Courses for future Master’s students from around the world
Preparing for a Master’s degree with MOOCs
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is introducing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to help prospective
international students prepare for a Master’s degree at TUM. MOOCs for Masters are designed so that participants can
test their knowledge before applying for their preferred Master’s course and close knowledge gaps they may have. Two
years ago, TUM became one of the first German universities to introduce its own MOOCs, which have already been
completed by over 100,000 participants in around 160 countries.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer participants from all over the world free access to tuition from outstanding academics. TUM’s popular MOOCs consist of several individual units, incorporating a number of video elements, each lasting
a few minutes. Participants can also complete interactive tasks, access additional learning materials and discuss topics in
online forums. They can then take an exam at the end of each course.
TUM is now expanding its offering by producing an initial new series of up to ten MOOCs, each designed as preparation for
a specific Master’s program (although they are not mandatory for applicants). The MOOCs will give participants the opportunity to test their knowledge and if necessary close any significant gaps before they apply for their preferred course. They
will also get a good idea of what the study program will entail.
For more information, please visit: http://go.tum.de/398478
Published by:
German Science Centre
11, Saleh Ayoub Street
Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt
http://www.dwz-kairo.de
info@dwz-kairo.de
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD)
German Academic Exchange Service
Kennedyallee 50
53175 Bonn (Germany)
www.daad.de
V.i.S.D.P.: Dr. Michael Harms, DAAD Director Communications
Concept and Coordination: Christian Melchert
Editing: Lindsey Parietti
Layout and typesetting: Rebekka Daubenberger
Printed by: Prohouse -- www.pro-house.net
Edition: 2016 -1,000
All rights reserved
© DAAD and the authors

Science Monitor

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