The Renewable Energy in Egypt and the Mena Region

In light of the immense energy problems facing MENA region, countries find themselves forced to the wall in meeting and increasing energy demand while responding to climate preservation calls and attaining high growth rates. As such, a number of promising scenarios have been proposed in the literature paving the way for a potential transformation to a more sustainable energy-driven MENA. However, an open-ended question of where to start is present. Shall priority be given to installing efficient energy technologies or renewable energy projects or both at the same time? Using a panel data from 1980 untill 2011 covering 18 MENA countries, this paper attempts to answer this question by investigating the impact of deploying energy efficiency technologies vis-a-vis renewable energy on economic growth. The long-run effects exhibited in the fixed-effects panel data model showed that attempts to reduce energy use will have negative impact on GDP growth. Several interpretations are presented, the most notable was that growth is led by energy-intensive industries in most developing countries.On the other hand, renewables exhibited no significant impact over the sampling period in line with the neutrality hypothesis owing to its tiny share in total primary energy supply. See more