Kuwait will require 10,500MW of additional power by 2020, MEED’s Kuwait Projects 2013 conference, held on 25-26 November, has been told.

Mike Wood, adviser to the country’s Ministry of Electricity & Water (MEW), revealed to the conference that Kuwait’s current generation capacity of 14,200MW will need to expanded by 10,500MW within the next seven years if it is to meet the expected growth in demand. The country will also experience a significant growth in demand for desalinated water, with an additional 270 million gallons a day (g/d) required by 2020, according to Wood.

Earlier, the director-general for Kuwait’s Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB), the body overseeing the country’s public-private partnership (PPP) programme, told the conference that financial close for Kuwait’s first independent water and power project (IWPP), Al-Zour North, will be reached “within days”.

The IWPP will have a power capacity of 1,500MW and 102-107 million g/d of desalinated water. When financial close for the Al-Zour North IWPP is reached, the PTB and the MEW will push ahead with the next phase of the project, which will have the same capacities as the initial phase.