Egypt defends power policies
Cairo said imposed rolling blackouts during the warmest part of the year are necessary to prevent the electrical grid from collapsing. An energy council led by Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said the blackouts would continue during the heat wave but would last only a few hours at a stretch, Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm reports.
Magdy Rady, a government spokesman, said new power stations were expected to come online within a few weeks and more solar power facilities were on the horizon.
Meanwhile, three Egyptian nationals filed a lawsuit calling on President Hosni Mubarak to dismiss Electricity Minister Hassan Younis for failing to address the problem.
The complaint to Mubarak said the power cuts are leading to a loss in productivity and threatening lives of patients at national hospitals, the report adds.
The Electricity Ministry said a budget shortfall is to blame for many of the electricity woes.
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IEA: Electricity investment surpasses oil and gas for the first time
LONDON - Investments in electricity surpassed those in oil and gas for the first time ever in 2016 on a spending splurge on renewable energy and power grids as the fall in crude prices led to deep cuts, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.
Total energy investment fell for the second straight year by 12 per cent to US$1.7 trillion compared with 2015, the IEA said. Oil and gas investments plunged 26 per cent to US$650 billion, down by over a quarter in 2016, and electricity generation slipped 5 per cent.
"This decline (in energy investment) is attributed to two…
