RIYADH, 3 November — Ministers of electricity from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will meet in Oman today to review progress on a project to link power grids of their countries.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are currently working with the GCC Power Grid Authority to implement the power project.
“The ministers will review a report prepared by the Dammam-based Power Grid Authority about how to implement this huge power-grid linkage project,” said GCC Secretary-General Abdulrahman Al-Attiya in a statement here yesterday.
The $6 billion project, once implemented, will save $2.6 billion for the Gulf states as it will reduce the cost of power generation on the one hand and facilitate its distribution on the other.
The Power Grid Authority, comprising representatives from the Gulf countries, has prepared a detailed report. A study revealed that the cost of linking the GCC power grids will be lower than the setting up of many new power generation plants in the region. Execution of this project will ensure regular power supply to the thousands of industrial units operating in the Gulf countries besides boosting their productivity.
This project will also facilitate some of the GCC countries to supply their surplus power from their reserves to other member states and make them self-sufficient.
The project assumes special significance because of the progressively surging electricity consumption in the Gulf states. In the Kingdom alone, the total number of electricity subscribers exceeds 3.4 million. More than 7,100 cities and villages in Saudi Arabia have been electrified so far.
According to the study, the Kingdom still needs SR140 billion until 2020 to cope with the growing power consumption despite a major electrification plan currently under way.
According to another study, Saudi Arabia will require a whopping $115 billion during the next 23 years to set up new power generation projects.
The Kingdom’s power requirement is reportedly growing at a rate of 5.5 percent annually.
The first phase of the project will link the power grids of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Kuwait will reportedly bear 30 percent of the cost of the first phase of the project.
The UAE and Oman will be linked in the second phase.
In the final phase, the two mega-grids are to be joined together. The Gulf states will partly finance the project and a very substantial part of the funding will come from the local financial institutions and international banks.
The GCC power ministers will also discuss means to reduce the cost of electricity production.
The GCC power grid project was approved by the 18th GCC summit held in Kuwait in 1997. The power,however, did not make much headway for some time. But the project got off the ground after GCC power ministers signed a historic agreement recently.
The GCC plan also seeks to unify power tariffs in member states.
