Green energy, old power: Who controls the energy transition in the MENA?

In Gaza, electricity shortages are not a technical inconvenience; they are a daily constraint on hospitals, water systems and basic dignity. Across other fragile parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), rolling power cuts and high energy costs have become politically explosive, exposing how electricity functions as pressure rather than a neutral public service. UN reporting on humanitarian infrastructure repeatedly shows how energy deprivation cascades into wider human insecurity.

Against this backdrop, governments across the region now present renewable energy as a pathway to resilience and modernisation. Solar power, wind projects and green hydrogen sit at the centre of official “Vision” strategies, often framed as a clean route to diversification and post-oil futures. Yet these promises unfold inside deeply entrenched political structures.

Energy transition in the MENA is not simply about replacing fuels. It is about power: who controls generation and grids, who benefits from new investment cycles and who pays the price of reform. Electricity has never been politically neutral in the region. Renewables, on their own, do not change that. Without institutional reform and social inclusion, the green transition risks reproducing existing inequalities under a cleaner label.

Why the energy transition threatens existing power structures

For decades, energy systems in the MENA region have underpinned informal social contracts. Subsidised electricity and fuel compensated for weak welfare provision and limited political participation. When prices rose or supply faltered, political consequences followed swiftly.

Renewable energy disrupts this balance. While solar and wind reduce long-term costs, they require upfront investment, regulatory reform and, in many cases, subsidy restructuring. Governments face a persistent dilemma: preserving affordability to maintain social stability while shifting toward new energy models that may initially raise household costs.

Regional energy assessments and official data consistently show strong public resistance to subsidy reform, particularly where institutional trust remains low. As a result, many governments pursue renewable expansion without integrating it into broader social policy, creating parallel energy systems rather than a coherent transition.

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Green projects, old elites: How renewables remain centralised

Renewable energy development across the MENA largely follows a familiar pattern. Large, centrally managed projects dominate national strategies. Mega solar parks and export-oriented green hydrogen initiatives attract foreign investment and international attention.

These projects expand capacity but rarely transform governance. Control remains concentrated within state institutions and politically connected actors. Licensing regimes, land allocation and grid access often favour large firms, sidelining communities and small producers.

In theory, renewable energy enables decentralisation. In practice, regulatory barriers continue to restrict rooftop solar, community ownership and local grids across much of the region. The result is a transition that appears green, yet operates through the same centralised logic that characterised the fossil fuel era.

Who pays for the transition? Energy reform and social inequality

Energy transition is often framed as a long-term public good, but its short-term costs are unevenly distributed. Rising electricity tariffs, subsidy reductions and new cost-recovery mechanisms affect households differently, and in the MENA those differences are politically charged. Low-income families spend a higher share of their income on energy and are the first to absorb price shocks when reforms are introduced.

Across the region, past energy reform attempts reveal a consistent pattern. Where governments removed subsidies or adjusted tariffs without credible compensation, protests followed and policies were diluted or reversed. World Bank and regional assessments repeatedly show that energy pricing reforms fail when they erode trust and ignore lived realities. Energy transition cannot succeed where households experience it as punishment rather than progress.

Renewable energy strategies often promise lower costs in the future, yet offer little protection in the present. When governments prioritise investor confidence and fiscal signalling over social protection, the burden of transition shifts downward. Energy reform then becomes another mechanism through which inequality is reproduced, rather than reduced.

A just transition requires more than clean technology. It demands lifeline tariffs, targeted support for vulnerable households and transparent redistribution of savings generated by renewable deployment. Without visible public benefit, renewable energy loses political legitimacy. In the MENA, where social contracts are already fragile, ignoring justice is not a technical oversight; it is a political risk.

Renewables under blockade: Energy transition in Gaza and other fragile contexts

Energy transition debates across the Middle East often assume functioning markets, sovereign control over infrastructure and the freedom to deploy technology. Gaza exposes how fragile these assumptions are. Chronic electricity shortages there are not the result of market failure or climate stress, but of blockade, fuel restrictions and repeated destruction of civilian infrastructure. UN agencies have consistently documented how limited electricity supply undermines hospitals, water treatment, food storage and basic living conditions.

In such contexts, renewable energy is frequently presented as a technical fix. Decentralised solar systems could, in theory, reduce humanitarian vulnerability and ease pressure on overstretched public services. In practice, restrictions on materials, financing, grid access and movement sharply limit deployment. Energy transition under occupation operates within political constraints that no amount of technological optimism can overcome.

Treating Gaza’s energy crisis as a development challenge rather than a political one obscures responsibility. Electricity deprivation functions as a form of structural pressure, shaping daily life and eroding human dignity. A transition that ignores blockade and control risks becoming a narrative of adaptation to injustice rather than a pathway to justice.

Similar dynamics appear, in less extreme form, across other fragile and conflict-affected parts of the region. Where sovereignty over energy systems is contested, renewable energy cannot be detached from questions of power, accountability and rights. Any serious discussion of energy transition in the MENA must therefore confront occupation, restriction and unequal control as central variables, not peripheral complications

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Clean energy as influence: regional competition and new dependencies

Renewable energy has also become a tool of regional influence. Gulf states increasingly project power through clean-energy investment, financing infrastructure rather than deploying troops. Egypt and Morocco position themselves as renewable hubs linking Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

These dynamics reshape alliances while introducing new dependencies. Energy transition does not eliminate geopolitics; it reorganises it. Countries with capital, technology and diplomatic reach shape regional energy architecture, while others remain price-takers within emerging green markets.

Conclusion: clean power alone will not deliver justice

Energy transition in the MENA region is not a technical race towards renewables. It is a political process shaped by power, trust and inequality. Solar panels and wind turbines can change energy mixes, but they do not automatically change who controls infrastructure or who benefits from reform.

Where renewable energy is governed through the same centralised structures as fossil fuels, it reproduces the same vulnerabilities under a greener banner. Without institutional reform, social protection and public participation, clean energy risks becoming another mechanism of exclusion rather than a source of resilience.

The region’s future energy system will not be judged by installed capacity or headline investment figures. It will be judged by who controls power, who pays the costs of transition and whether access to electricity becomes a source of dignity rather than political pressure. In the MENA, a just energy transition is not optional. It is the difference between stability and renewed contestation.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.