Tunisia plans to rely on Algerian expertise to develop a 1,400 MW power plant, officials said, after a summer of record demand and widespread outages exposed the limits of the country’s domestic electricity system and its heavy dependence on energy supplies from its neighbor.
Algeria’s state-owned utility Sonelgaz and Tunisia’s Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG) will soon begin the studies needed for the project. Tunisian Energy Minister Slah Zouari announced the next steps after an Oct. 1 meeting in Algiers with Algerian Energy Minister Mourad Adjal.
“Among the projects discussed is the construction of a 1,400 MW power plant in Tunisia. A technical delegation will soon travel to Tunisia to discuss all the timelines related to the implementation of this project,” Zouari said.
The two utilities must also review the parameters and specifications required for the plant. Zouari said the Algerian and Tunisian governments have approved the project and want it completed as quickly as possible. The total investment cost has not yet been determined.
The 1,400 MW project is not new. Adjal and Fayçal Tarifa, then CEO of STEG, discussed it in May. But it has returned to the agenda after a summer in which surging electricity demand put severe pressure on Tunisia’s power system.
Tunisia, the smallest country in the Maghreb, suffered widespread power cuts during the summer of 2026 as temperatures approached 50°C, driving heavy use of air conditioners and a sharp rise in electricity consumption. Throughout July and August, STEG announced rotating power cuts across the country to reduce pressure on the grid.
At peak summer hours, demand reached nearly 6,000 MW, while Tunisia’s domestic generation capacity stood at only about 4,500 MW from several STEG-operated plants. The gap underscored both the strain on the system and Tunisia’s reliance on imported energy.
That reliance is especially pronounced in natural gas, the backbone of Tunisia’s power system. At the end of May, gas accounted for 91% of national electricity production, while renewable energy accounted for just 9%, according to the National Observatory of Energy and Mines.
Algeria already plays a central role in that gas supply. Direct purchases from Algeria accounted for 63% of Tunisia’s gas supply over the same period, while another 11% came from the in-kind royalty Tunisia receives for transit of Algerian gas to Italy through the Transmed pipeline. In total, nearly three-quarters of the gas available in Tunisia was linked to Algerian flows.
The relationship extends directly to electricity as well. Tunisia imports about 13% of its electricity needs from Algeria, which also faced a severe heat wave and recorded an all-time high in electricity consumption.
For Algeria, the proposed Tunisian plant would add another major project to Sonelgaz’s growing activities outside its domestic market. The state-owned utility created Sonelgaz International specifically to develop business abroad.
In June, Sonelgaz inaugurated a 40 MW power plant at Gorou Banda in Niger, financing and building the entire project. Algeria also signed a framework cooperation agreement with Côte d’Ivoire that month in the energy and renewable energy sectors, including provisions to modernize electricity generation, transmission and distribution networks.
Sonelgaz has also established a presence in Chad. A month before the Côte d’Ivoire agreement, a Sonelgaz International delegation traveled to N’Djamena to conduct technical studies for a 40 MW power plant in partnership with local utility Tchad-Élec.
The proposed 1,400 MW plant in Tunisia would be far larger than Sonelgaz’s recent power projects elsewhere in Africa. For Tunisia, it comes as domestic generation capacity struggles to cover peak demand and the country’s electricity system remains heavily dependent on Algerian gas and power.
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