​​Algerian renewable energy development and energy efficiency program.
You've probably heard it said before that Africa is the cradle of humankind. However,
it was previously believed that only the Eastern part of Africa could bear this title. But
a surprising discovery of a collection of ancient stone tools in Algeria in 1992, and
new archaeological evidence suggested early people’s ancestors first arrived in north
Africa about 600,000 years earlier than previously thought. The findings point to evidence of
human life in Algeria, that is north Africa, 2.4 million years ago.
Prof Mohamed Sahnouni at the National Research Centre on Human Evolution in Spain, who led
the research, said that the evidence from Algeria showed that the cradle of humankind
was not restricted only to east Africa, but the entire African continent.
For the most part of history, Algeria has been subject to colonisation, and conquer.
Between the Carthaginians, the Romans, and the Vandals, it is no surprise that Algerian
culture is as diverse as it is today.
In colonial times, Algeria suffered a very painful deceit. On May 8, 1945, when thousands
of Algerians came out to peacefully demonstrate their joy following the end of the second
World War and remind the French colonial regime of its promise to grant them independence
following their participation in the victory of the Allies in the Second World War, the
French colonial regime, instead of responding favorably to the legitimate aspirations of
the Algerian people, responded with a violent repression that caused the death of more than
45,000 Algerians. The massacres that took place in particular
at Setif, Guelma and Kherrata galvanized the independence spirit and accelerated the emergence
of a nationalist elite who were convinced that , what had been taken by force could
only be taken back by force. And after a wholesome 132 years of martyrdom and suffering, Algeria
ever hopeful and resilient, gained it's independence.
In more recent times, Algeria has been a force to be reckoned with in energy resources. Algeria
has proven to have one of the world's largest reserves of natural gas . With a capacity
of 2.3 trillion cubic meters as of 2020. Natural gas production stood at around 85 billion
standard cubic meters in that same year, making Algeria the leading producer of natural gas
in Africa. As well as the 10th leading producer in the world in that same year.
As of February 2011, the Algerian government adopted a national development plan for renewable
energies, aiming at diversifying the national energy mix and saving fossil resources.
Talk about producing green energy on a large scale.
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Algeria is a North African country with a Mediterranean coastline and a Saharan desert
interior. It is divided into 48 provinces, with a total
area of 2,381,741 km². The Sahara occupies 86% of the total land. That will be a whooping
1,905,392 km². Too much space occupied by vast expanse of sand right? Wrong. The desert
does have it's uses. As you'll come to see. The country is bordered from the north by
the Mediterranean Sea, to the south by Mali and Niger, to the East by Tunisia and Libya.
Algeria is the gate of the African continent. It has a strategic location in the north facing
Europe, and it is the largest country in Africa. Algeria announced the transition of its energy
model away from hydrocarbons to renewable energy. This was a very balsy move given that
Algeria generates almost all its power from hydrocarbon resources. During the last decade,
the market price of crude oil has fallen down drastically and up to this date its price
is still fluctuating. This has severely affected the national economy, and with the absence
of significant oil discoveries the government has been left with a stark choice to either
push a bold renewable energy agenda or consume its oil and gas export revenues. And ofcourse
the former option was the obvious choice. And hence the birth of the Algerian renewable
energy program.
The Algeria program on renewable energy and energy efficiency established the ambitious
goal of deriving 40% of electricity production from renewable energy sources (RES) by 2030.The
project is divided into lots of 50 to 200 MW each. The goal is to attract independent
power producers (IPPs) to develop renewable energy resources, the most abundant of which
is solar.
For these projects, Algeria welcomes foreign investment, and it has revised a number of
regulations to encourage it, including allowing foreign entities to own a majority stake.
Investors must however meet some local content requirements, including using equipment manufactured
locally, largely solar panel and assembly structures. There are numerous factories producing
solar panels in Boukherana industrial zone, and the province of Ouargla, to meet the rising
demand. The national plan aimed to add 22 Gigawatts
of renewables over the 2015-2030 period, with the first 4,500 Megawatt commissioned by 2020.
The bulk of this new capacity was to come from solar photovoltaic system, producing
13,575 Megawatts, followed by wind power producing 5,010 Megawatts, concentrated solar power
systems, producing 2,000 Megawatts, biomass amounting to 1,000 Megawatts, Combined heat
and power systems, producing 400Megawatts, and finally geothermal producing 15Megawatts.
Algeria's renewable energy potential is enormous, mostly focused on solar, and in order for
the above figures to be achieved, some 60 solar photovoltaic plants, concentrated solar
power plants and wind farms as well as hybrid power plants were planned.
Because of its location in the Sahara Desert, Algeria's solar potential is incredibly huge,
estimated to be as high as 14 Terawatthour per year.
Algeria's Sonatrach and Eni, the Italian oil and gas company, jointly built a 10 MW solar
plant in 2017. Sonatrach's 2030 Vision calls for the installation of 1.3 GW of solar generation
capacity at the company's oil and gas sites, mainly to cover electricity needs on energy
production sites. One of the world's first hybrid power stations
was constructed at Hassi R'Mel. It combines a concentrated solar power array covering
over 180,000 meters, in association with a gas turbine and steam cycle plant, using natural
gas as well as solar-generated steam. The plant started electricity production in June
2011.
Algeria also has over 13 hydropower plants, and these represent its third-largest energy
resource after natural gas and oil. Most of Algeria's hydropower plants are located in
the northern parts of the country that benefit from high levels of rainfall, and therefore
high water levels in the dams. Algeria has startling wind energy and geothermal
potential as well. Its wind potential is forecast to be about 35 TWh/year. Algeria's first wind
farm was built at Adrar, with an installed capacity of 10 MW and with funding from the
state-utility Sonelgaz. A series of thermal springs in north central Algeria in locations
such as Ouarsenis, Biban and Kabylie are very potential sites for geothermal plants.
Progress on the Algerian renewable energy program is slow in coming. Power targets set
for 2020 were not met. And the program fell short of their target by very high percentages.
Solar photovoltaic energy uses photovoltaic modules to convert energy from the sun into
electricity Solar photovoltaic energy contributes 2.8% of the total global energy. Hence, it
has become the world’s fastest-growing renewable energy technology, and is the most expanded
and competitive in the power generation market.
With twenty two solar genetion stations installed in Algeria in 2020, only 400MW of energy could
be produced. And hence only a 13.33% achieved on their initial target of 3000MW.
Hydropower is energy obtained from moving water. In most cases it's falling water. Hydropower
plays an important role in renewable energy, and global energy production.
The investment in large hydropower plants has been accompanied by an obvious increase
in world energy consumption through an increase in demand over the last ten years.
Algeria has a total of 13 dams as earlier mentioned, with a capacity of 269MW. But due
to water shortages the country started to cease all hydropower generation station operations
in phases, while devoting efforts to dams for water and irrigation purposes.
Wind energy generating systems use kinetic energy from the wind to turn turbines for
power generation. Initially there were seven wind energy generation
plants planned for complete construction in Algeria by 2021. However, only one plant has
been developed and is operational. Wind energy generation dropped by 47.4% from 19GWh in
2017 to 10GWh in 2018. Although the wind generation target in the country is 3000MW by 2030, no
news or information has been made available by the government or renewable energy companies
as regards wind power projects in the near future.
Geothermal is a technology that harnesses heat from beneath the earth's surface. The
estimated geothermal reserve could supply the entire world for around 217 million years.
Algeria's renewable energy development center established a geothermal center in Saida for
the research and development of geothermal power generation. The country has a geothermal
generation target of only 15MW by 2030. Currently, there are no planned projects in the search
and development of geothermal power generation in the country.
Bio-power includes solid biomass, liquid biofuels, biogas, and landfill gas. Bio-power has also
been shown to produce high greenhouse gas emissions but at levels less than fossil fuels.
Algeria's renewable energy development center established a biopower research and development
facility in the Ouled Fayet land fill. The target for biopower generation in the country
is 1GW by 2030. Currently there is no biopower generation in the country.
The renewable energy project also aimed to improve the country's social, economic, and
environmental development. The project as has an immense potential for creating new
jobs, agricultural improvements, municipal water supplies, and low carbon development.
By 2021, 3800 jobs had been made available in the renewable energy sector in Algeria,
a small fraction compared to the 58, 000 jobs that were planned.
For the education sector, the government announced the development of an executive decree on
the establishment of an educational institution to train renewable energy and sustainable
development professionals. The professional would then support the job needs of the renewable
energy plan. One more impact of this project is the water
heating systems which were 45% subsidized and have provided water heating systems to
over 2000 residential homes. It was hoped that with the help of the program,
Algeria would reduce it's carbon dioxide emissions by 7%, but recent studies show a steady increase
in the volume of CO2 emissions due to increasing load demand which in turn led to an increased
power generation from fossil fuel resources. As is apparent Algeria's initial plans to
transition to green and renewable energy had not been much of a success. And hence a reform
was in order. Algeria then unveiled a comprehensive energy
transition plan as part of its 2020 Five Year Development Plan. Algeria’s energy transition
plan consists of three structural components, a new government ministry, a regulatory reform,
and a new national renewable energy company.
These 3 structural components were put in place, successively in preparation for the
reform.
In June 2020, the government created the ministry of energy transition and renewable energies.
The first of two new bodies to manage and carry out the transition plan. By creating
this ministry, the government hopes to end managerial problems of competing prerogatives
witnessed in earlier renewable energy initiatives. The government equally plans to provide the
new ministry with the resources that energy transition planners need to better materialiser
initiatives.
The second structural component, the regulatory reform started on January 25th, 2021. The
Ministry of Energy declared that the 2002 law on electricity would soon be reformed
to open the market to small and medium-sized enterprises working in renewable energies,
reduce natural gas consumption, and speed up renewable energy production. As an added
initiative, the ministry indicated that any price changes would only apply to electricity
operators and large consumers versus consumers at large.
Finally, on April 19th, 2021, the government created a stand-alone renewable energy company,
the Algerian Society of Renewable Energies (SHAEMS), under the authority of the ministry
of energy transition and renewable energies. SHAEMS is co-owned by the Sonatrach and Sonelgaz
groups. It will serve as a one-stop-shop for all prospective investors, EPC contractors,
service providers, and other renewable energy ecosystem players. It will also issue renewable
energy tenders, award contracts, and negotiate power purchase agreements.
The new plan also includes three substantive pillars: a National Energy Conservation and
Efficiency Program, a National Renewable Energy Development Program, and a new National Energy
Mix Model. Energy conversation and efficiency efforts
hopes to improve energy efficiency by ten percent annually in transportation, housing,
and industry. The renewable energy development program will
focus on developing extensively Algeria's solar resources in the high plateaus and Sahel
regions and substituting natural gas consumption with blue and green hydrogen, thereby reducing
the use of hydrocarbons for energy production by a significant amount, and ensuring that
less carbon dioxide emissions. Finally, the country’s energy mix model
aims to reach at least 30 percent power generation from renewable resources by 2030 and generate
25 gigawatts of power from green and blue hydrogen by 2050.
Despite the urgent need to transition to renewable energy, some analysts are skeptical of the
renewed energy transition plans due to the failure to meet similarly ambitious goals
announced in the last decade. Ofcourse they don't want a repeat of the formerly announced
renewable energy plan of 2011, which sought to install and generate 22 gigawatts; 40 percent
of it's generation capacity from renewable energy by 2030. Instead, today Algeria generates
only 411 megawatts from renewable energy sources. Nonetheless, officials hoped that the new
strategy described would reinvigorate attempts to bring more than 1 gigawatt of solar energy
online by the end of 2021 and an additional 13 gigawatts by 2030.
The renewable energy produced does have an energy market and the Algeria renewable energy
market is expected to grow at a stunning compound annual growth rate of over 1% during the 2020
to 2025 forecast period. Factors such as diversifying the economy of the country and decreasing
the dependence on the oil and gas sector will drive the renewable energy market in Algeria.
Moreover, diversification of energy mix, offers multiple benefits, including job creation
and energy security, which is further promulgating the renewable energy market in the country.
However, factors, such as delay in governmental approval for the new projects, policy uncertainty,
and lack of an efficient regulatory framework, have hindered the growth of the market in
the country. Solar energy is expected to be the largest
market during the forecast period, with continuous growth in solar photovoltaic cell installations
in the country in previous years. Algeria is very much vulnerable to climate
change, considering the vast amounts of greenhouse gas emissions perpetrated by them in previous
decades, and the fact that over 90% of their electrical energy comes from natural gas and
crude oil. This therefore demands for decreased use of fossil fuel. Hence, the government
is planning to increase the share of renewables in energy generation in coming years, creating
ample opportunity for the market players.
The Algeria renewable energy is moderately consolidated. Some of the key players are
Algerian Solar Company, Sarl Algerian photovoltaic cell Company, Zergoun Green Energy, SCET Algeria
Energy, and Shariket Kahraba wa Taket Moutadjadida, SKTM.spa, the Sonelgaz holding's electricity
generation subsidiary.
Algeria really has come a long way. And still has a long way to go. What do you think??
Will Algeria achieve it's 22gigawatts renewable energy plan by 2030??
Share your thoughts in the comment section.