Start with the number that decides everything. In 2023, 84% of Egypt’s electricity came from natural gas (Ember). Another 4% came from oil and other fossil fuels. Hydropower, overwhelmingly the Aswan High Dam, supplied about 7%. Wind and solar together accounted for roughly 5%.
That last figure surprises people, because Egypt is often described as a solar giant in the making. The description is not wrong; it is just early. At Benban in Aswan sits one of the largest solar parks in Africa, usually cited at around 1,800 MW. Even there the record is contested — some 2025 reporting puts the working capacity closer to 1,465 MW, and our database notes the discrepancy instead of choosing between them.
The pipeline is where the ambition shows. Abydos 1 near Kom Ombo, at 500 MW, has been operational since December 2024. Kom Ombo Solar, a smaller 200 MW plant, is notable less for its size than for achieving a record-low tariff — the price, not the panel, is the breakthrough. On the wind side the Gulf of Suez has become a corridor: Zafarana at 545 MW, Gabal El Zeit at 580 MW, and the 1,100 MW Suez Wind project, which reached financial close in January 2025 with operations targeted for 2027.
Note that word targeted. Several of these are projections rather than achievements, and we label them that way. A wind farm announced is not a wind farm generating, and the distance between the two is measured in years and financing rounds.
So the honest summary is a country with abundant sun and a reliable wind corridor, still running overwhelmingly on gas, and building hard to change that. The 5% figure is not a failure — it is a starting line that is being redrawn while the gas keeps the lights on.
Every figure here is real and cited, and where sources disagree we say so. You can query the same data yourself — try a SQL challenge or explore the datasets.