MENALINKS launched its first Regional Expert Committee meeting

The Regional Expert Committee meeting opened with a full-day session dedicated to sharing national experiences and technical priorities. Stakeholders from all five MENALINKS partner countries— Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Türkiye—gathered to present their focus areas and reflect on lessons learned in advancing smart grids, energy flexibility, and renewable integration. 

Country spotlights on current activities  

Each country contributed with the advancements and lessons learned of its respective focus area under the MENALINKS programme, offering a diverse and complementary portfolio of themes. 

• Morocco spotlighted its current work on urban smart grids and demand aggregation, with efforts focused on unlocking residential flexibility through pilot projects, regulatory sandboxes, and benchmarking initiatives. 

• Tunisia shared its progress in enabling battery energy storage systems (BESS), emphasizing the need for technical specifications, regulatory frameworks, and investment strategies to support both centralized and decentralized solutions. 

• Egypt presented its advancements in smart mini-grid regulation and industrial flexibility, including public consultations, investment forums, and capacity-building activities aimed at creating a robust regulatory and financial ecosystem. 

• Jordan focused on industrial flexibility as a tool to manage peak loads and integrate renewables, showcasing its rollout of time-of-use tariffs, smart meters, and sector-specific pilot projects. 

• Türkiye addressed grid-forming technologies and reactive power support, highlighting the importance of minimum inertia strategies and capabilities of distributed generation to maintain grid stability under high renewable penetration. 

 These country insights laid a strong foundation for deeper regional collaboration and mutual learning, setting the tone for the workshops that followed. 

The first workshop of the Regional Expert Committee meeting focused on regional synergies and collaboration. Split into technical and regulatory breakout groups, participants identified shared thematic priorities and the practical mechanisms needed to implement collaboration more effectively.  

Technical Group 

The technical group identified several high-priority themes for regional cooperation, including: 

• Integration of large-scale RES, requiring improved forecasting tools, grid impact studies, and solutions for inertia—particularly relevant for Türkiye. 

• Flexibility solutions, such as storage, time-of-use tariffs, and mini-grids, with Jordan’s TOU rollout serving as a reference point. 

• Linkage of MENALINKS’ activities to existing technical collaboration structures such as MedTSO  

Participants also discussed sector-specific issues, including grid monopolies and limited capacity in Tunisia, and the need for reform and innovation in grid operations. The group emphasized the importance of peer learning and transparency, sharing both best practices and bottlenecks to accelerate regional progress. 

Regulatory Group 

The regulatory group examined existing collaboration structures, such as the Mediterranean Energy Regulators initiative, and identified key barriers for policy instruments facilitation the integration of renewables such as: 

• Uneven institutional maturity, with some countries still establishing regulatory bodies. 

• Dependence on political approval, limiting autonomy in tariff and incentive design. 

• Information gaps, which hinder replication of successful models. 

• Limited focus on economics, with a need to better address business models and cost-recovery frameworks. 

To overcome these challenges, participants proposed:

• Digital platforms for continuous exchange and benchmarking. 

• Study tours and thematic task forces to deepen engagement on emerging topics like hydrogen and aggregation. 

• Private sector inclusion, ensuring regulatory designs are economically viable and investment-ready.

MENALINKS was recognized as a key facilitator, with the potential to support experimentation with tariff models, sandbox pilots, and shared resource hubs for data and documentation. 

Building a mandate for the Regional Expert Committee (REC) 

In a dedicated workshop session, participants jointly laid the foundation for the Regional Expert Committee’s formal mandate. The REC is envisioned as the first knowledge-sharing hub for smart grids and sector coupling in the MENA region, bringing together representatives from all five National Expert Committees to exchange and endorse focus area advancements, share best practices, and support regional advocacy and outreach. 

Its core functions will include curating replicable solutions, shaping policy recommendations, and coordinating knowledge transfer across borders. Stakeholders emphasized the importance of tailoring the REC’s value proposition to a wide range of audiences—from regulators and grid operators to industry, academia, and civil society. 

To ensure impact and continuity, proposed working modalities include biannual meetings, thematic task forces, and study tours aligned with regional priorities. MENALINKS will support the REC by providing digital platforms for exchange, visibility on emerging trends, and accessible resources to foster convergence and collaboration across the region. 

Conclusion 

The first Regional Expert Committee meeting marked a significant step toward structured, cross-border collaboration to facilitate the integration of renewables in the MENA region. By surfacing shared priorities and candidly addressing institutional and technical challenges, participants laid the groundwork for a dynamic and inclusive platform for regional exchange. The discussions not only highlighted the diversity of national experiences but also revealed a strong appetite for mutual learning, innovation, and coordinated action. With the Regional Expert Committee taking shape, the MENALINKS partner countries are poised to transform common challenges into collective solutions—advancing the region’s energy transition through cooperation, knowledge sharing, and strategic alignment.