How Karm Solar Is Solving Off-Grid Energy Access in Egypt Through Private Solar Networks
What is the problem?
Egypt’s population is over 100 million, and its long sunny days and vast desert terrain make it ideal for solar power. It should be one of the easiest countries to run on solar power. But Egypt still runs mainly on subsidized natural gas.
However, rural villages, desert farms, and remote coastal tourist areas sit far from the national grid. When they can get grid power, it’s unreliable. When they can’t, they run expensive, polluting, and loud diesel generators.
Egypt’s government has pushed some big solar projects, but it needs more companies willing to design, build, and operate private solar systems that off-grid customers can use.
What is the solution?
Karm Solar builds off-grid solar power systems for Egyptian farms, villages, resorts, and industrial sites.
The company sells energy directly to private customers, letting them skip the slow, bureaucratic process of connecting to the national grid.
Karm Solar can build a solar array and water pumping station that runs irrigation 24 hours a day without diesel. For a tourist resort in Marsa Alam, Karm Solar is building a 500,000 square-meter solar plant with its own distribution network and transformer station, powering hotels and services without connecting to the public grid.
For a village in the Bahariya Oasis, Karm Solar’s building subsidiary (KarmBuild) designed and built solar-powered worker housing using locally sourced stone, sand, and shale, reducing its carbon footprint and costs.
Karm Solar has also expanded into battery storage, electric vehicle charging, and water solutions, making it a full off-grid energy platform rather than just a solar panel installer.
What is the business model?
Karm Solar sells electricity directly to private customers under long-term power purchase agreements, usually 15 to 25 years. Customers pay Karm Solar a monthly fee for electricity, often at a price that beats running diesel generators.
Karm Solar covers the upfront cost of building and installing the solar infrastructure, then earns revenue over the life of the contract. This is a classic infrastructure finance model.
Karm Solar also earns revenue from its building, water, and electric-vehicle-charging subsidiaries, and from new partnerships under Egypt’s recent Private-to-Private (P2P) electricity framework, which lets private power producers sell directly to private buyers.
In 2021, EFG-Hermes announced a strategic partnership to offer lease financing for Karm Solar’s projects, which lets smaller industrial and tourist customers afford the switch to solar.
How is it structured and funded?
Ahmed Zahran and his co-founders founded Karm Solar during one of the most turbulent years in Egypt’s recent history. Zahran serves as CEO. The company is headquartered in Cairo. It was the first private company in Egypt to receive a license to distribute solar electricity. In recent years, Karm Solar has restructured into Karm Holding, a diversified group that now covers solar power generation, electricity distribution, battery storage, electric vehicle charging, sustainable construction, and water. Its largest shareholder is EDF Power Solutions, the renewable energy arm of French utility giant EDF, which has provided the company with capital and credibility to grow larger projects.
In November 2025, Solar Quarter reported that Karm Solar’s largest planned development is a 100 MW solar plant under Egypt’s new Private-to-Private electricity framework.
Why is it innovative?
For years, the government and international investors focused on huge utility-scale solar plants that sell power to the state. Those projects took years to finance, approve, and build, and they did little for the rural farms, villages, and businesses that needed reliable power right away.
Karm Solar flipped the model. Instead of selling to the state, it sells directly to private customers.
Instead of waiting for the grid, it builds its own small networks around the sites it serves. This “off-grid first” approach is faster, cheaper, and far more useful to the customers who actually need stable power quickly.
The company has also built a vertical stack. It owns the solar panels, distribution network, battery storage, and in some cases, the buildings themselves. This control over the entire value chain is what lets Karm Solar deliver on long-term power purchase agreements with confidence.
CEO Ahmed Zahran said the Egyptian solar sector’s biggest mistake was trying to build “monstrous projects that are difficult to finance” when the real opportunity is in smaller, private, off-grid systems.
What is the impact?
Based on Karm Solar’s own reporting and press coverage:
First private company in Egypt licensed to distribute solar electricity
Backed by EDF Power Solutions (French multinational utility) as largest shareholder
Built the first commercially viable high-capacity solar water pumping station in the MENA region in 2013
Operates projects across Upper Egypt, Bahariya Oasis, and the Red Sea coast
Avoids approximately 2.3 million liters of diesel consumption per year
Avoids approximately 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year
Diversified subsidiaries now operate under the Karm Holding umbrella
Solar & Distribution: KarmSolar / KarmPower.
Water Utilities: Solar-powered desalination via KarmWater.
Mobility: EV charging networks through KarmCharge.
Sustainable Infrastructure: KarmBuild, Karm Architecture Lab, and specialized energy storage systems (BESS)
What needs to improve?
Karm Solar faces three main challenges.
First, Egypt’s state heavily subsidizes gas-powered electricity, making solar look expensive by comparison even when it’s cheaper over the project's life.
Second, financing complexity. Off-grid solar projects require large upfront investment that pays back over 15 to 25 years. Not every Egyptian customer can afford a long-term contract, and local lenders are still learning how to underwrite these deals. The EFG-Hermes leasing partnership helps, but access to patient capital remains a bottleneck.
Third, competition from the grid itself. If the Egyptian national grid eventually extends into the remote areas where Karm Solar operates, some customers may abandon off-grid contracts for subsidized grid power. Karm Solar is trying to stay ahead by moving into services the grid cannot easily provide (water pumping, storage, EV charging, building design), but the long-term tension between private solar and public grid expansion is a real threat.
Sources:
KarmSolar introduces solar energy to sunny old Egypt Karm Holding is planning to build a solar microgrid to unlock South Sinai's stalled industrial zone
Comments