Kuwait’s Summer Power Woes To Continue Through 2026, And Likely Beyond

2 Aug 2024 Issue: 67 / 31 By: Yesar Al-Maleki

Kuwait’s power sector is in urgent need of capacity additions and grid upgrades. In the absence of this, electricity imports are set to rise to 1.5GW in 2026, while Kuwait is also investigating a number of quick fixes in a bid to stave off blackouts.

A report by a committee formed within Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) paints a dire picture for summer power provision out to at least 2026. Excerpts published by local daily al-Anbaa on 28 July show plans to hike electricity imports from around 500MW this summer to 1GW in summer 2025 then 1.5GW the year after, while also hiring power ships and installing mobile generation units for next summer in a bid to enable quick supply additions.

The failure to bring new power generation capacity online in recent years has left installed capacity stuck at 20.25GW, while electricity demand has been steadily increasing. With an aging fleet, maintenance requirements are rising and unit shutdowns are becoming frequent. An outage at the key 6GW Az Zour South power complex in June coincided with intense air conditioning usage, plunging Kuwait into a power crisis and leaving MEW no choice but to implement rolling power cuts (MEES, 21 June). (CONTINUED - 1004 WORDS)