By Menna Zaki

Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development Mostafa Madbouly announced plans Wednesday to build solar panels on some government buildings in an attempt to reduce stress on Egypt’s overburdened electrical grid, according to an official statement issued on Wednesday.

Madbouly signed a protocol with the New Urban Communities Authority and the Information and Decision Support Center to provide technical and financial assistance on the project, which, as part of the “Shamsak ya Masr” (Egypt’s Sun) initiative, aims to decrease reliance on fuel by shifting to solar energy.

Solar cells will be built on the roof of the New Urban Communities Authority building to help generate power for lighting and increase the capacity of the electricity network, according to the statement.

The government “will not be able to prevent electrical power cuts” this summer, Egypt’s Minister of Electricity and Energy Mohamed Shaker said last month. He added that the government would try to reduce energy consumption to the lowest level possible but the problem would take a few years to be resolved.

By 2020, the government aims to produce 20% of the country’s energy through new and renewable energy, including solar power, former electricity minister Ahmed Emam had said during the Future Investment Opportunities in the New and Renewable Energy summit in February. Around 12% of the electricity will be generated using wind energy while the remaining 8% will be produced through “other renewable energy sources”.