Jointly held by by MEDREG and RES4Africa Foundation on 4 May, the webinar presented and discussed a new survey
Assessing Investment Risk in Renewable Energy, developed by RES4Med in collaboration with PwC.
The survey gathers investors’ views about risks and barriers to investigates
why private investments in the renewable energy sector of the Med region are still limited in spite of the solar and wind potential, the growth of energy demand and the increasing political commitment to a green future. The study covers
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, assessing the views of private and public stakeholder on five areas of analysis (legal, regulatory, economic, financial, infrastructural, environmental and social).
Morocco stands out for having the lowest risk level, where policy makers have made major strides in the past years.
Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia are in a medium-risk group, having made large improvements in certain risk areas but where some other areas require more policy effort
. Algeria, Libya and Lebanon fall into a high-risk category, where attracting RES investments will require significant additional effort in broadly all risk areas. In the four countries covered in both editions of our survey (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan) there has been a marked decrease in risk perception over the past five years.
The survey also identifies the
existing perception gaps, giving important indications on which are the areas where greater business-to-government dialogue is needed. Large perception gaps exist in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, countries where policy makers have been making great strides but investors believe further de-risking is needed.
More information about the findings of the study is available in
RES4Africa Press Release while the full survey is available
here.
Focusing on the role of regulators in the Mediterranean region,
Pedro Verdelho, Chairman of the MEDREG RES Working Group, underlined the fact that “
Today renewables are a competitive process. Decarbonisation and economics are two dimensions that are aligned. In fact, if they were not, we would never talk about energy transition, people would hardly accept it and consequently it would not be a fair transition."
Meanwhile,
Sorina Mortada, Vice Chairwoman of the MEDREG RES Working Group, who moderated the sessions, recalled that “
A well converged and designed energy regulation can pave the way for an integrated and interoperated energy market in the Mediterranean region. Therefore, a stable, predictable and transparent regulation along with a cost based tariff mechanism and a non-discriminatory third party access are the main prerequisites in promoting the RES investments."