CAIRO, Jun 28 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb inaugurated a production line for solar panels on Sunday, as Egypt continues to shift towards using renewable energy.

Solar panels produced annually will have the capacity to generate 50 megawatts.

The inauguration was attended by an array of ministers, including the minister of military production.  

The production line is inside a renewable energy plant that operates under the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI), a military-affiliated giant chaired by the president of Egypt.

The head of the AOI, Abd El Aziz Seif-Eldeen, who is a retired lieutenant general said at the inauguration that the organisation is cooperating with global consortiums to set up a solar power plant with a capacity of 100 megawatts, using foreign funding.      

AOI is currently managing several renewable energy projects, both inside Egypt and overseas. 

Egypt has recently been moving towards diversifying energy sources to face a recurring energy crisis.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was cited by Reuters as saying in September that Egypt needs to add 12,000 megawatts to its power grid over the next five years. 

The peak of Egypt's power crisis was last summer, when power cuts lasted for up to several hours a day. 

Egyptian authorities have often attributed the power crisis to a larger fuel crisis, turning to renewable energy such as solar and wind energy.

Egypt has also sought the assistance of Russia in setting up a nuclear power plant, in an agreement in February.

But the shift towards new and renewable energy will cost the state a lot.

In October, Egypt's Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker said the cost of producing renewable energy is "much larger" than that of relying on fossil fuels.

Last month, Investment Minister Ashraf Salman said it is expected that investments worth $45 billion will be pumped into Egypt's new and renewable energy sector over the next 10 years.