CAIRO, Sept 24 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt's cabinet approved on Wednesday a presidential decree encouraging the production and use of electricity generated from renewable energy. 

The legislation would encourage the private sector to invest in generating electricity from renewable energy, the cabinet said in a statement. 

The new law would define the mechanisms to be adopted when establishing renewable energy power plants. 

The draft law is the latest in a string of measures recently adopted by the government in the field of renewable energy.

Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker announced on Saturday the tariffs for electricity generated by renewable energy.

The tariff was divided into five segments, Shaker said, starting from 84.8 Egyptian piasters (0.12 U.S. dollars) per kilowatt hour for domestic use.The price of the electricity in the highest segment stood at 102.5 Egyptian piasters per kilowatt hour. This segment will be allocated for projects operated by 20 to 50 megawatt.

The cabinet also amended last week the law governing the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) to allow the authority to form companies to produce and sell electricity.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi urged nation-states, international institutions and the private sector to invest in renewable energy projects in Arab countries in his speech before the UN Climate Summit in New York on Tuesday.

Since the summer of 2012, Egypt has been facing its worst energy crisis in years, with power outages on the rise. Power cuts have specifically surged since the start of this summer.

Egyptian authorities have often owed the power crisis to a larger fuel crisis, which mainly involves a shortage in natural gas.