Egypt to turn off half street lights to save electricity

Egypt will reduce half street lights in order to save 700 megawatts of power worth LE6 billion ($920,000), the state-run daily newspaper Al-Ahram reported today. Al-Ahram added that Ahmed Imam, who took office as Minister of Electricity and Energy last week, said the electricity conservation plan will be carried out by the Ministry of Local Development and accomplished by March 2013. In late December last year, over 15 nationwide power stations halted electricity generation due to shortages of fuel. Sources told Al-Ahram that if the fuel production crisis does not end soon, "half of Egypt's governorates will be plunged into darkness". in October last year the government had called for all shops to shut at 10 pm in order to conserve electricity. The new rules, however, which were meant to go into effect on 1 November, proved unacceptable to much of the public. From Ahramonline