As the largest non-OPEC oil producer in Africa and second largest producer of natural gas, it is somewhat ironic that Egypt is one of the most energy insecure countries in the region. Still scrambling to recover from the devastating effects of political and social upheavals during the Arab Spring, the country’s ordeal of intermittent electrical blackouts and severe power shortages persists. As a result, the government has been forced to import crude oil and petroleum products from the GCC states, primarily Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to meet rising domestic demand spurred by rapidly growing population. But this may be about to change. For all its political and economic misfortunes, Egypt is blessed with vast but largely untapped renewable energy resources – the country enjoys direct sun radiation of 2,800 kWh per square metre per year, topped by 3,015 full load hours of wind, the highest among Arab countries. These vast resources are offering unrivalled opportunities for foreign investors, with many quick to take advantage.

“Egypt is one of the largest economies in the region and the fact that they are successfully taking off with the renewable energy programme shows that there are very good things to come,” said Daniel Calderon, CEO of Alcazar Energy, a UAE-based independent developer, that has a $200mn investment in solar and wind plants in Egypt, and is planning to invest an extra $100mn over the long term.

“They have largely met the expectations of investors when they first announced the programme – that’s incredible. Even some of the most sophisticated economies in Europe and North America have struggled to keep the deadlines—this is a difficult thing when you are implementing a new energy framework that works in light of your local legal rules and regulations, so I’m excited because we have the unique opportunity to show our investors and our shareholders that the governments will be following the rules that they are laying out.”

Daniel refers to the recent passing of Egypt’s renewable energy law regarding new projects, the allocation of land for such projects, connecting them to the national grid and the sale of power they generate. The government is also currently working on more detailed regulations on wind and solar, devising a new market structure, while also revising the roles of its exiting electric utility entities. All of this, on the back of plans to have renewable energy account for 20% of total power generation by 2022, 12% of which will be produced by wind energy alone.

However, Daniel warns that to meet these ambitious targets, governments in the region need a significant amount of foreign investment that won’t come to the region unless the necessary contractual details are ironed out.

“Looking at the targets that governments in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa gave themselves, if you value them at the current and future cost of technology, so the amount of megawatts that they have permits to have times the cost per megawatt, you need a total investment of about $200bn by 2020. That’s an immense amount of money.

“But for that money to come to the region, you need loads of people who can invest it in a bankable way so these contracts need to give people 20-25 years’ line of sight on the cost of power.”

“They need to give bankable frameworks that you can give to national construction companies so that loans can come on a longer course basis. And that’s something that’s developing in a very steady way. So, when I say I’m excited it’s because this could be the beginning of a $200bn market – that’s a good thing for the region, in terms of jobs, in terms of lights at night, in terms of hospitals, these are good things from a social perspective,” he added.

Companies like Daniel’s are mushrooming in the Middle East as the investment landscape improves and more robust and reliable legal policies are being implemented across the region. “We want to be long-term investors in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa,” Daniel states with zero hesitation, his confidence in the market as high as it can be. Currently, Daniel’s company has shareholders from nearby countries like Jordan all the way over to Washington DC. But as its portfolio grows, it’s very likely that so will the number of investors, Daniel says.

When asked about the type of technology he expects to gain the most traction in the years to come, the answer was short and clear: “I can tell you right away, it’s wind and solar. Last year we saw $330bn being invested in renewable energy worldwide, $270bn of that was wind and solar. This is because to be able to obtain project finance, you need to use bankable technology and the technology in the solar and wind sector has a very low cost.”

Thanks to its successful bankable policies, Jordan, followed by Tunisia, is another high growth market for foreign investors, says Daniel. “As its renewable energy framework takes off, the macro economics are such that renewables makes a lot of sense [in those countries],” he concludes.