The location of Egypt’s first nuclear reactor will be announced within two months, Electricity and Energy Minister Hassan Younis has said, noting that a proposed site at Al-Dabaa on Egypt's North Coast had been selected by an international consulting firm based on outdated studies conducted in the 1980s.
Younis also pointed out that total electricity output produced by recently built nuclear power stations was double that produced in an entire year by Egypt's Aswan High Dam.
He added, however, that some areas of the country would experience alternating electricity cuts in order to reduce the load on the national electricity grid.
“We could avoid these cuts if each household reduced its electricity consumption by only five percent,” Younis said, noting that it currently cost the government some LE7 billion per year to cover peak hours.
“It doesn’t make sense that our electricity consumption rate stood at 12 percent in May and July while our economic growth rate only stood at 5 percent,” he said, denying that the government was currently mulling the cancellation of energy subsidies.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
