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German developer ABO Wind remains optimistic that it can develop two Tunisian projects it secured in 2019 but is having to switch one from wind to solar and is also battling with the commercial framework.

Scatec’s decision to scrap its largest solar scheme, while renegotiating two smaller projects, provides a glimmer of hope to legions of other developers with stalled projects in Tunisia. African Energy’s analysis points to a narrow commercial window through which more projects might advance, but more fundamental change is needed before several gigawatts of wind and solar in other stranded schemes can succeed.

President Kaïs Saïed’s appointment of former EBRD executive Ouael Chouchane as secretary of state for energy transition is a rare optimistic sign for the Tunisian renewable power sector, following years of drift.

United Arab Emirates-based developer Amea Power reached financial close on the 120MW Kairouan solar PV plant in late September, achieving something no other developer has yet  managed in Tunisia – which was once one of the region’s more promising markets for renewable power development.

The prospects for giga-scale renewable power projects in North Africa have never been better, leveraging off export-led green hydrogen projects and the advantages of adding cheap non-emitting capacity to already well-developed grids. But the latest figures from African Energy Live Data show that, over the next five years, North Africa will instead pour ever more natural gas into a growing fleet of open cycle plants, while relatively few wind and solar projects have firm completion dates.

Tunisia’s economic decline and return to autocracy has been underlined by the World Bank suspending new projects in response to President Kaïs Saïed’s anti-immigrant stance. However, Qatar may soon start to provide much-needed funds and Tunisia is also earning revenue by acting as a re-export hub for embargoed Russian oil, writes Jon Marks.

While inflation and supply chain challenges have slowed the progress of many renewable projects, Amea Power has continued to expand its portfolio of solar and wind projects, with some 1.1GW of capacity operational or under construction, and a further 6GW under development. And it has big ambitions for green hydrogen and ammonia, the Dubai-based developer told Marc Howard.

Amea Power executive chairman and founder Hussain Al-Nowais in late February provided a detailed insight into 11 of the Dubai-based developer’s projects under development in African markets.

Tunisia's Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy has issued a trio of renewables independent power project (IPP) tenders under its Programme National de Développement des Énergies Renouvelables (PNDER – National Renewable Energy Development Programme).

Etap wants to play a more prominent role in oil and gas developments, but the national company lacks the financial resources to drive a major exploration and production drive, in the once buoyant, if relatively small upstream industry, where majors want out and even the minnows who long made the running are in much reduced numbers. Europe is anxious to tap North African resources, but Etap is operating in a depressed market where IOCs are finding it hard to divest to buyers with a greater appetite for Tunisian risk, write James Gavin and Jon Marks.

After a disastrous couple of years when almost no new electricity was added to Steg’s grid despite the urgent need to install alternatives to expensive Algerian gas imports, the Tunisian authorities have launched a 1.6GW renewables procurement round, and it is possible that some of the nearly 1.5GW of wind and solar projects under development may also start construction this year, writes John Hamilton.

Tunisia’s largest undeveloped field, the 780km2 Zarat concession held by state Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap), was renewed in June 2022 under a 30-year contract. However, the acreage is seen as both costly and technically challenging.

The economy, under autocrat-populist President Kaïs Saïed’s rule, is in a long and potentially accelerating decline, while the population is ever more alienated from the political system. These hard realities are reflected in everything from simmering popular anger over slumping living standards to a faltering oil and gas industry and unfulfilled plans to deliver big renewable energy projects, write Jon Marks, John Hamilton and James Gavin.

Algerian utility Sonelgaz is promoting plans to export more power to its neighbours in North Africa and across the Mediterranean to Europe.

The European Commission has agreed to cover more than one-third of the cost of the Elmed power interconnection from Tunisia to Italy. Interest in the project was revived four years ago alongside rising European interest in importing renewable energy-sourced power from north Africa.