Electricity Ministry to postpone planned plants amid oversupply, slow growth: A surplus in electricity production of up to 15k MW per day and relatively slow demand growth have prompted the Electricity Ministry to tweak its project pipeline and postpone a number of planned plants, government sources told the press. The excess production could still be as high as 13k MW a day — even after the completion of interconnection projects underway that would see Egypt export electricity to Sudan, Greece, and Cyprus. Officials from the electricity, finance, and oil ministries will meet to decide which projects are suitable, given the sector’s growth rate. Power plants in Oyoun Moussa, Damanhour, and Mahmodeya are among the projects likely to be either postponed or tweaked.

The ministry is also looking at other ways to promote energy efficiency. It is mulling plans to utilize the excess electricity in water desalination projects and deploying electric car charging docks. The ministry has also received offers from investors to purchase stakes in electricity plants in the new capital, Burullus, and Beni Suef. We noted in May that the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) could sell stakes in its electricity production and distribution subsidiaries to the private sector under an asset management program, as part of what could be a privatization drive to overhaul the electricity sector to promote market competition and increase efficiency.