Assessments and recommendations

To provide relevant context for the consideration of investment in renewable power in Jordan, this section provides a brief overview of Jordan’s economic and energy trends. Jordan’s economy has exhibited moderate economic growth for a number of years, but has struggled with energy security and supply challenges, as well as large current account and fiscal deficits leading to rising public debt. These imbalances are closely linked to the regional refugee crisis and the structure of Jordan’s energy sector. Securing energy supply is a key priority for the energy sector, to cope with: high energy dependency frequent exogenous shocks due to regional conflicts high electricity costs rapid growth in demand for electricity a high ratio of energy imports to total imports and high levels of support for fossil fuels. These challenges all point to the need to scale up investment in domestic energy supply, and especially in renewable power generation,1 in order to sustaining economic growth, improving energy security and reducing budget pressure associated with fossil-fuel imports.