Amira El-Noshokaty reports on the increasing use of wind energy After two decades of global warming the race is on to find alternative, and less destructive, ways of generating power than burning fossil fuels. The renewed interest in the possibility of harnessing the wind is part of that race. It was embraced by the Egyptian government in the late 1980s -- by 1988 a pilot project in Ras Gharib had been established to examine the possibilities of generating power by harnessing prevailing winds. "We then implemented a pilot wind park in 1992 in Hurghada," says Hosni El-Kholi, executive chairman of the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) at the Ministry of Electricity and Energy Authority. "The wind in the Red Sea, especially the Gulf of Suez, is northerly. It is funnelled between two chains of mountains, creating a narrow air tunnel that gives rise to one of the world's strongest stable wind currents -- in the Al-Zaafarana district it blows at an average of nine miles per hour." Al-Zaafarana Wind Park, spread over 80 square kilometres, appears on the horizon after a four-hour journey northeast of Cairo. A joint venture between the Overseas Development Assistance programme (ODA) and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), it was funded by grants from, among others, the KFW Bankengruppe, Spain and Japan. When complete the wind park will comprise 222 wind turbines. "Each wind turbine has a production capacity of 600 kilowatts per hour, with production costs averaging $600,000 per 600 kilowatts," explained Atef Marzouq, Al-Zaafarana site manager. So far this year the capacity of Egyptian wind parks has increased from 68.5 to 146.5 megawatts -- Al-Zaafarana produces 140 megawatts, Hurghada 5.5 megawatts and the northern coast 1.5 megawatts. An additional 85 megawatts of wind power will be added to Al- Zaafarana by the end of this year. When production reaches capacity Al-Zaafarana will be capable of powering up to 65,000 houses. Al-Zaafarana's 2003 production rate of 68.5 megawatts per hour meant a 150,000 tonne decrease in national emissions of carbon dioxide -- a drop in the ocean, perhaps, given the 2001/02 figures stood at 110.7 million, but then wind-generated electricity currently comprises only one per cent of the national grid. By 2010 that figure should have risen to three per cent. The environmental benefits of wind power, however, can be outweighed by its costs. Currently 70 per cent of the mills' components are imported. This means that wind energy production costs average 12 to 13 piastres per kilowatt per hour -- comparable to the cost of traditional energy sources were they not so heavily subsidised. (The government currently subsidises electricity production from natural gas and petrol to the tune of nine to 10 piastres per kilowatt/hour, the result being private sector investors shy away from investing in clean energy). Currently carbon dioxide emissions are growing at a rate of seven per cent per annum. The generation of electricity accounts for 31.6 per cent of those emissions, transportation 25.6 per cent and manufacturing industry 25.5 per cent. For any real dent to be made in emission rates patterns of electricity consumption need to be completely re-thought. And one indication of what the future may hold can be found among the Tarabin Tribe of South Sinai. The Tarabin live in Beir Sweir, 28 kms south of Nuweiba. Comprising 12 families of fishermen, shepherds and vendors of handmade ornaments, they have lived there all their lives apart from those months in the spring when they head to the mountains to find pasture for their animals. Until last year they had never had electricity. Now, as a result of a collaborative effort they are the beneficiaries of Egypt's first successful wind-solar system. The project involved Hemaya NGO, the Egyptian Solar Energy Society, the Arab Manufacturing Authority, the Arab Office For Youth and Environment (AOYE), who worked in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility-Small Grant Programme (GEF- SGP). "We used to live in the dark," says Azhia Salem, recalling how her children could not finish their homework at night, and how dogs used to attack their sheep. "At first nobody believed it," she says, remembering how her tribe and their neighbours first viewed the small-scale wind turbines. They thought they were water pumps. But as night fell on the desert, and the wind propelled the mills and the seven houses received light, the reality sunk in. On some levels the Beir Sweir experiment offers a more feasible model to duplicate than larger wind turbine projects. "Eighty per cent of the wind turbine's parts were made in Egypt," says Sherif El-Ghamrawi, head of Hemaya, whose role was to locate the Bedouin tribes, coordinate, and implement the project. The Tarabin tribe were selected for the pilot project because they had absolutely no access to electricity. But despite lower costs the biggest deterrent in the nationwide spread of such projects remains money. The wind solar hybrid turbine guarantees 3.5 kilowatts an hour -- enough for the seven families. But with installation costs of LE30,000, it remains beyond most Bedouin's financial means. The Beir Sweir tribe were lucky to have been picked by Hemaya. Their turbine has two solar panels as a backup source to charge the low consumption 24 volt car batteries and they now have free electricity for life. "It is very simple but functioning," says El-Ghamrawi. Another wind turbine is currently under construction to supply five more families in the same area. Projects such as these, El- Ghamrawi emphasises, that are part of a bigger aim -- to radically change patterns of electrical generation and consumption. Why, asks El-Ghamrawi, try to include every remote village on the national grid? "Such communities need a limited amount of electricity, so why not take advantage of the sun and air?" he says, pointing out that beyond research, awareness and promoting social work among the young are important. "The young do not know that if they created NGOs for solar and wind energy preservation and usage, they would get funds, government support and foreign environment grants. They can actually achieve things," he says. Emad Adli, head of the AOYE, reiterates the point, stressing that the only way to promote the use of clean energy is through joint efforts between the government and NGOs. "The government is responsible for promoting a switch to clean energy sources," he says. "The role of NGOs is to convince people of its importance -- to promote cultural change." Hurghada's pilot wind park is currently researching the cost and reliability of local sourced models such as the wind-diesel hybrid system. According to the 2003 report of the Egypt Energy and Environment Review -- a study conducted by the Environment Resource Management (in cooperation with the Organisation for Energy Planning OEP) and other concerned authorities) -- the cost of environmental degradation in Egypt is rising. The study estimated the cost of the damage caused carbon dioxide emission on both the environment and humans to be $80 per tonne -- an increase from $6 billion in 1990-91, to $8.9 billion in 2001/02 (a cumulative value of about $84.4 billion 1990/91-2001/02).
