Light at the end of the tunnel for Tunisia after solar energy boom

As Tunisia, long heralded as the Arab world’s only democracy, slides ever closer to one-man rule, questions about the future of the country’s political system are multiplying.

Tunisian President Kais Saied has edged the country toward autocracy since taking office in 2019, his recent crackdown on dissidents and tirades against Tunisia’s African immigrants alarming the international community.

However, this ongoing turmoil has failed to slow one of the more positive aspects of Tunisia’s record: the country’s embrace of renewable energy.

"Amid this bleak picture, renewable energy offers Tunisia the opportunity to pursue two goals at once: attracting hard currency and meeting its objectives for renewable energy"

In January, the Tunisian Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Energy announced that it was courting bidders to develop 10 solar power plants with capacities of 100 megawatts.

The process for fielding proposals will stretch well into 2025, an indication that Tunisia has long-term plans for solar power even as the near-term health of the Tunisian body politic remains in doubt. The initiative will also enable Tunisia to secure much-needed foreign direct investment.

A 2019 call for bids by the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Energy saw consortiums of firms from China, France, Morocco, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates win contracts to construct solar farms throughout Tunisia. Other bidders included companies from Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Spain.

Given that the climate crisis has only heightened the private sector’s interest in the renewable energy industry, Tunisia’s January announcement will likely catch the notice of forward-looking investors throughout the Arab and Western worlds once again.

This type of foreign direct investment is taking on new importance as Tunisia’s economy, like much of North Africa, struggles with inflation.

Marouane Abassi, the governor of the country’s central bank, said in January that the inflation rate reached 8.3 percent in 2022 and could grow to 11 percent in 2023. In the view of some experts, an agreement that Tunisia concluded with the International Monetary Fund last year will fall short of addressing these economic troubles.

Amid this bleak picture, renewable energy offers Tunisia the opportunity to pursue two goals at once: attracting hard currency and meeting its objectives for renewable energy.

Tunisia intends to derive 35 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2030; in 2022, renewable energy accounted for just 8 percent of the country’s productive capacity. To close this substantial gap, Tunisian officials have indicated that they plan to solicit as much as $3.5 billion in bids to build a series of solar and wind farms across Tunisia within the next seven years.

In 2020, the Dutch firm Climate Fund Managers issued a press release announcing a partnership with the American company UPC Renewables to establish a 30-megawatt wind farm in Tunisia.

Such multinational alliances have become typical of Tunisia’s approach to renewable energy, with the German Agency for International Cooperation, better known as GIZ, supporting the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Energy’s ambitious plans for solar power.

Analysts have observed that these kinds of foreign collaborations predate Saied even as they blossom under his administration.

According to a March 2 report by the Arab Reform Initiative, “of 22 renewable energy projects since 2015, only half have Tunisian project leaders and only four are exclusively led by Tunisian firms.” The report criticised “the involvement of the private sector” as coming “at the expense of local involvement and development” and highlighted “the presence of capable national actors,” namely Tunisian companies.

These players include Gamco Energy, which bills itself as “among the leaders of the photovoltaic solar plant in Tunisia.” Seeraj Energy, meanwhile, promotes its expertise in “renewable energies utility-scale projects and commercial solar projects.”

While the renewable energy industry represents a scalable conduit for foreign direct investment, Tunisia may also leverage its expansion of solar power as a way to bolster companies like Gamco and Seeraj.

However Saied chooses to implement the next stages of Tunisia’s strategy for solar and wind power, his consistent commitment to the renewable energy industry has offered a measure of stability amid the wider political turmoil that has characterized his rule.

On March 4, thousands of protesters answered the Tunisian General Labour Union’s call to demonstrate against his slide toward authoritarianism. Demonstrators’ slogans included: “Freedom! End the police state!” The precarious state of Tunisia’s economy has engendered further hostility toward the government.

Whatever becomes of Saied’s regime, his energy policy appears likely to survive. The Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Energy notes on its website that “Tunisia has been committed since 2013 to a new energy transition strategy” – an implicit acknowledgement that the imperatives of climate change mitigation transcend the various governments and political upheaval that Tunisia has seen since the Arab Spring. The renewable energy industry outlasted them all.

In light of disagreements over whether Tunisian officials should prioritize foreign direct investment or domestic firms in the promotion of renewable energy, Tunisia’s energy policy, like the country itself, will benefit from consensus.

With or without an agreement, though, Tunisia’s infrastructure for renewable energy looks set to expand as the political system teeters.

Austin Bodetti is a writer specialising in the Arab world. His work has appeared in The Daily Beast, USA Today, Vox, and Wired