Reaching for the Sun?

The Search for Sustainable Energy Policies in North Africa and the Middle East

This publication is intended to provide an exchange of ideas from different countries on how to shape energy policies. In search for a sustainable economic development we have to reach for policies to promote the use of renewable energies.
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Desert power

Progress and Pending Questions

Against the background of the Arab Spring, the concept of power from North Africa’s deserts has gained new impetus given its prospects for energy security and economic development in the region. However, some issues lying at the heart of the idea, still remain unresolved.

Up and down the Dardanelles

Istanbul’s Bosporus is a bottleneck for international hydrocarbon transfers.

Many international, if not global, fossil energy transfer systems have one common ground: Turkey. The country is planning to become a gas and oil hub. But in the short term, turmoil in the region and political power plays will affect these ambitions. In the case of Turkey, however, energy export plays an increasingly subordinate role to political »pro-activism«.

The Emnazeil experience

Decentralized energy supply systems in the Westbank

Power cuts, dark streets and diesel smoke are the awkward companions of electricity in rural Palestine. But a tiny village in the Hebron district has recently obtained a microgrid fed by a photovoltaic system. The community feels electrified in different ways. A model for other rural areas in the Middle East?