Khaberni - The legal time in Egypt changed, starting at 12 AM on Friday, with the application of the winter time system and the end of daylight saving time that the Egyptian government reinstated in 2023, after years of suspension aiming to rationalize energy consumption.
Daylight saving time is a system of changing the official time in Egypt twice; firstly by advancing the clocks by 60 minutes at the beginning of spring, and then reverting to winter time at the start of autumn.
The Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi issued a law stating that "from the last Friday of April until the end of the last Thursday of October each year, the legal time in the Arab Republic of Egypt will be the time followed, advanced by 60 minutes".
Daylight saving time was first implemented in Egypt during the era of King Farouk I by decree-law No. 113 of 1945 - according to the explanatory note of the daylight saving time law - and since its enactment it has seen several applications and cancellations, the last of which was the cancellation of this system in 2016.
Last summer, the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity announced that the national grid registered a record high in consumption, and confirmed that it "absorbed the unprecedented loads".
Egypt’s nominal electric generation capacity exceeds 59,000 megawatts, according to an official statement in 2022, after adding 31,000 megawatts during the period from 2014 to 2022 through the implementation of more than 17 projects to establish stations from conventional sources and renewable energy.
Before the start of the summer season, the Egyptian government held several meetings to develop a plan to face the increase in loads and demand for electricity during the summer, based on providing the necessary fuel to operate power generation stations, with changing the operating pattern and reducing fuel consumption, diversifying electricity generation sources, relying on renewable energies, maximizing their benefits by using energy storage technologies, and expanding in establishing connected and standalone storage stations to stabilize the electrical grid at peak times.
