EnviroAlgerie 2008   19/10/2008
Enviro Algerie is a conference and trade fair organised jointly by GTZ Algeria and the German Algerian Chamber of Commerce which took place this year for the first time. The conference was well attended, with high level participants (including the Minster of the environment) on the Algerian side as well as numerous German representatives, predominantly from the private sector and academia. The conference was a great opportunity to present the RCREEE initiative and the presentation was received with much interest. The questions from the audience showed a strong interest in RCREEE, also from the Algerian side. In co-ordination with the GTZ office in Alger a follow up on the various intermissions, also with a view of further exploring the Algerian institutional landscape in the field of renewable energies and energy efficiency. GTZ Algeria will most likely commence with an environmental program in early 2009 which will also focus on renewable energies. The local GTZ activities should also help to support RCREEE in Algeria. In addition to the presentation of RCREEE, the panel comprised a variety of speakers from the public and the private sector. DENA gave an overview of developments in the German market. Germany is committed to the EU 20 20 target, i.e. generating 20% of all electricity from renewable sources by 2020. According to DNA, wind is likely to continue to be most important renewable energy source, but it is expected also a strong increase in photovoltaic. The key to the development of renewables in Germany was the regulatory framework, which provided private sector power producers with (i) access to the grid and (ii) a guaranteed feed in tariff. The German Law on Renewable Energies (“EEG�) boosted both the production of electricity from renewable energies and the manufacturing industry (wind and solar). Representative of the New Energies Algeria, a development company active in renewable energies, whose major shareholders are Sonelgaz and Sonatrach, reported that the precondition for renewable energy production in Algeria was the opening of the electricity market to private sector companies. Algeria has excellent conditions for solar power. Whereas in the past the predominant technology was PV, used for rular electrification in South Algeria, he considered CSP as the technology of the future. CSP was cheaper than PV, but still substantially more expensive than carbon fuels. It will therefore depend on subsidies. As a general goal, Algeria plans to gerate 5% of ist electricity from solar sources in 2015 and hopes to export electricity generated from renewable energy sources from 2020 to Europe. Team Leader of MED ENEC reported on project, with which you all will be familiar with, and gave an overview of the pilot projects which MEDENEC is supporting. In each of the 10 states covered by MEDENEC, one pilot project was selected and funded, which (i) employs state of the art technologies, (ii) would, due to market barriers, not be implemented without MEDENEC support and (iii) results in a substantive reduction of energy costs. I found the idea of the pilot projects interesting and would suggest to discuss to what extent it makes sense to employ a similar approach for RCREEE.

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