The Middle East and North Africa region is one of the richest regions in the world with renewable resources, especially solar energy. However, this energy is not optimally exploited as a result of the dependence of these countries, especially the Arab Gulf countries, Libya and Algeria, on oil resources.

Research studies indicate that the Middle East and North Africa region receives approximately 20-22% of the solar energy that the world receives annually.

Studies also indicate that every 1 square kilometer of the Middle East and North Africa region receives solar energy equivalent to 1-2 million barrels of oil annually, which is a large amount of wasted and untapped energy.

This region also has large areas of desert in which the temperature is very high, which confirms the ability of the countries of the region to be leaders in exporting electrical energy resulting from solar energy in the future.

The countries of the region realize that the transition from dependence on non-renewable energy to renewable energy is inevitable as a result of the growing global awareness of the environmental problems resulting from the increased consumption of oil resources. Environmental pollution resulting from the increase in the proportion of carbon dioxide has also raised great concerns about the possibility of affecting the environmental balance. This has prompted many countries around the world to formulate future plans to rely primarily on renewable energy and replace non-renewable resources.

The agreement reached by the countries of the world during the COP28 summit in the UAE – which stipulates the necessity of reducing the use of fossil fuels – confirmed that the developing countries of the world, including countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, have become more aware of the importance of the inevitable shift towards renewable energy.

Although the countries of the Middle East possess large resources of solar energy, there are many reasons that hinder the development of its use and reliance on it mainly in the current period:

First: Most Middle Eastern countries have large oil resources and have political clients. Which makes the transition towards renewable energy resources not easy at the present time, especially with the volatility of global energy markets and the constant need of European countries for oil resources. In order to secure their energy needs necessary to maintain a high growth rate, the large profits achieved by the countries of the region from exporting oil resources play an important role in pushing them to focus more on their fossil resources because of their awareness that these resources will lose their value in the near future, and then these countries work to Achieving the greatest economic benefit from it.

Second: The countries of the region gain a geopolitical advantage by exporting their oil resources in times of crises, which helps them build highly beneficial international alliances.

Third: Despite the large financial returns that some countries in the region obtain from oil exports, these countries lack the necessary infrastructure to exploit solar energy, and these countries do not possess the technology necessary to develop highly efficient solar panels that convert solar energy into electrical energy. .

Fourth: Exporting solar energy requires a special type of infrastructure, especially since the export lines will pass through more than one country, which requires reaching political agreements with a large number of countries, and this matter may take a long time. Moreover, export lines may pass through politically unstable countries, which makes their construction cost significantly high.

In the end, the countries of the Middle East and North Africa region have many solar energy resources, but they are not exploited due to the lack of the necessary infrastructure to exploit and export this energy. The countries of the region also depend on highly profitable oil and gas resources. This reduces the incentive to switch to renewable resources.