Kuwait’s Al-Zour North 1 independent power and water project (IWPP) has begun supplying electricity to the national grid, according to the Kuwait News Agency.

As generation is ramped up, it will supply Kuwait’s summer peak in demand for water and electricity.

It is scheduled to be fully commissioned by the end of 2016.

The IWPP has a capacity of 1,500MW and 450,000 cubic metres of desalinated water a day.

South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries and France’s Sidem signed a $1.4bn engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Shamal Al-Zour Al-Oula, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) company awarded the contract to build and operate the Al-Zour project, in December 2013.

This followed a tendering process that extended over five years due to political reverses and bureaucratic delays.

The project company is 40 per cent owned by a consortium of the UK/French GDF Suez (now Engie), Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation and local Abdullah Hamad al-Sagar & Brothers, with 10 per cent held by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth funds Kuwait Investment Authority and Public Institution for Social Security.

The remaining 50 per cent of the shares were subject to an initial public offering (IPO) that was fully subscribed.

The restructured Kuwait Authority for Private Partnerships (KAPP) has started the tendering process for Al-Zour North IWPP 2.

The commissioning of Al-Zour North 1 will ease pressure on Kuwait’s electricity supply, which was becoming critical due to project delays.

The Ministry of Electricity & Water (MEW) forecasts that peak power demand will climb from 12,800MW in 2013 to 14,000MW in 2015 and to 22,500MW by 2022. To meet the demand and build a reserve margin of about 10 per cent, it estimates that power capacity will have to reach 25,500MW by 2022, an 80 per cent growth in capacity.

The MEW also predicts that an additional 270 MIGD of desalination capacity is required to meet the estimated water demand by 2020.