Kuwait on track to meet growing power and water demand

27 November 2014

Ministry says water consumption will increase by 40 per cent by 2020

Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity & Water (MEW) says projects under way will meet the country’s increasing demand for power and water supplies.

Demand for water is expected to expand by 40 per cent by 2020, reaching 670 million imperial gallons a day (MIGD), up from 478 MIGD in 2014, according to Suhaila Marafi, director of the department of studies and research at MEW.

The ministry says it expects the country’s water capacity to expand in line with demand, hitting 935 MIGD by 2020. The assurances come after several delays to high-profile water projects.

Phase one of the $500m Doha desalination plant will have a capacity of 50 MIGD and is due to tendered within two weeks, after seeing more than a year of delays as studies were carried out.

Phase two will also have a capacity of 50 MIGD and will be tendered in April 2015.

To help keep up with rising demand in the short term, 30 emergency reverse osmosis (RO) units, each with more than 100,000 gallons of storage, are due to be “tendered soon”, according to Marafi. These are due to be deployed in residential areas and have a budget of KD3m ($10.3m).

Meanwhile, peak load demand for power in Kuwait is expected to be 17,600MW in 2016, up from 12,410MW in 2012.

The government currently faces several challenges in meeting the growing consumption of power and water, including a natural gas shortage that means some of the country’s installed gas-powered turbine capacity is not being used.

Currently installed capacity is 15,500MW, but due to the shortage of natural gas, only 14,000MW is available.

In order to meet domestic demand, Kuwait has an extensive programme of projects that includes upgrading existing power stations, installing new power stations and improving the transmission network.

 

 

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