CAIRO, Jul 18 (NNN-MENA) – Egypt will suspend rotating power outages, starting from Jul 21, to brace users for summer heatwaves, the Egyptian prime minister announced yesterday.
“As of Sunday, Jul 21, we will stop the load-shedding plan nationwide, during the summer period, that is, until mid-Sept,” Mostafa Madbouly said, at a press conference aired on the state TV.
Madbouly explained that, the government has recently been importing the fuel necessary for adequate power generation, adding that, the power crisis is expected to be resolved completely by the end of the year.
“I promise the Egyptian citizens that, we will work in full swing to completely reduce load-shedding after the summer months until the crisis is completely resolved before the end of the year,” he said.
Madbouly said that, recent heatwaves brought an over 12 percent increase in electricity consumption, compared to the same period last year.
For a year, Egypt has taken daily load-shedding power cuts, to ensure the safe operation of the grid and generation facilities, which has lately increased to a three-hour power outage every day.
In late June, Madbouly pointed out that Egypt would need to import 1.18 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of mazut and natural gas in total, to halt rationing power cuts.– NNN-MENA