Algeria will have to wrestle with a dilemma in the next few years : cutting hydrocarbon sales abroad that account for 96 percent of the total of its exports or wean its local industry and population from cheap energy to risk social and political troubles.
It turns again to its immense and sunny desert for a solution to the looming sticky situation as the country celebrates the 45th anniversary of the nationalisation of its hydrocarbon wealth.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika instructed the government to implement as a « nation’s top priority » a project to develop renewable energy resources to generate electricity and spare gas now used to fire power plants for export amid dwindling oil output.
« For this end, energy capacities from solar and wind resources will be developped on a huge scale across the country, » an official statement released follwing the meeting of top energy governmen officials chaired by Bouteflika on February 22 .
Algeria is thus following Morocco in taping renewable energy resources to become solar power in the North Afrcia and Middle East, though Rabat and Algiers have different reasons to the take the solar energy track.
Morocco is the only Maghreb country with no natural oil resources and is the largest energy importer in the region with 96 per cent of its energy needs being sourced externally. Morocco’s annual average energy bill had reached around US$7 billion over the past decade and electricity demand in the country is projected to quadruple by 2030.
Morocco is in a key geographical position that situates it as a regional hub and with an electricity network that is inter-connected with Spain and Algeria.
It has an ambitious renewable energy programme as it expects 42 per cent (equivalent to about 6,000MW) of its total energy mix to come from solar, wind and hydroelectric sources by 2020. It has more planned wind and solar projects than anywhere else in the region.
» The Algerian plan to develop solar and wind energy aims to produce 22,000 Megawatt by the year 2030 to satisfy local power consumption and export 10,000 Megawatt » the statement added.
Experts have estimated that one megawatt supplies 1,000 homes in a developed U.S. city like Seattle or Idaho. By such rule of thumb, the Algerian energy scheme would supply roughly six cities in the size of the Algerian capital Algiers.
« The renewable energy plan will create 300 ,000 jobs and needs investment of 120 billion U.S. dollar, » according to the official statement adding that » it would help Algeria spare 300 billion cubic meters for exports for the 2021-2030 period. »
Algeria came out as a brake when Germany-led European Union floated a bold solar plan for the Maghreb region as a whole in the 2000s to warm Europe with the desert electricity and trim dependency to Russia’s gas.
The Algerian shift to emphasis the need to develop solar and other renewable energy resources was triggered by dwindling oil output, soaring local consumption of gas
Algeria is Africa’s leading natural gas producer and the second-largest natural gas exporter to Europe. It is among the top three oil producers in Africa.
Algeria is estimated to have the third-largest amount of shale gas resources in the world.
However, gross natural gas and crude oil production have gradually declined in recent years, mainly because new production and infrastructure projects have repeatedly been delayed.
But its attempts to tap shale gas hit a snag amid stiff resistance of the population and political parties amid worries about scarce water resources and envirnoment risks amid widespread mistruct of the central government by population of southern regions where the rock gas potential lies.
Half of the value Algeria’s hydrocarbon exports are gas .Algeria accumulated a total of 880 billion U.S dollar from its oil and gas sales abroad for the 15 years to 2014, according to government and independent experts estimates.
It used most the earnings to pay back foreign debt to turn Algeria’s debt free and buy weapons to strenghened its military power in the region, making Algeria the three importer of arms in Africa.
But many local experts deplore Algeria’s failure to use the oil bononza to diversify its economy away from oil-and-gas dependency.
By Lamine Ghanmi