CAIRO: The capacity of Egypt’s national electricity grid has reached 32,000 MW which is enough to meet the highest demands in the summer, Electricity Ministry spokesperson Mohamed Al-Yamani told Youm 7 Saturday.
The electricity consumption during the peak period in Ramadan (sunset to sunrise) is expected to reach 28,000 MW, Yamany said, calling on citizens to rationalize consumption in order to meet the demand during the high temperatures of summer.
He also called on people to use the LED light bulbs instead of the normal ones, put the air conditioners on at temperature not below 25 C and not to operate all the electric devices at once.
Electricity Minister Mahmoud Shaker said that the electricity subsidy allocations for the fiscal year 2014/2015 reached 27billionn EGP ($3.5 b) adding that the government intends to decrease the figure to 20billion EGP by FY 2015/2016.
On Thursday, a source within the electricity ministry told Youm 7 that 1.7 million LED light bulbs will be distributed on 9 governorates during the upcoming four months.
The move comes as part of government efforts to tackle the country’s energy crisis, in which rolling power cuts in the summer have become routine since the January 25 Revolution in 2011, caused by fuel shortfalls at power plants and increasing demand.
Officials at the Electricity Ministry told Youm7 that 2,100 MW were added to the national grid during the past 5 months.
To procure energy for running power plants for this summer, Egypt has recently contracted with five foreign companies to import 90 shipments of fuel, 45 of which are scheduled to be delivered in 2015 and 2016.