RIYADH, 6 June 2004 — The Ministry of Water and Electricity will launch an energy saving awareness campaign this summer.
Dr. Saleh Alawaji, the deputy minister for electricity affairs, said the message would be spread through seminars and the mass media. Major public sector organizations will be involved.
“The ministry is working with the Saudi Electricity Co. and related agencies to promote a national awareness program for consumers toward an efficient use of energy. The message for the industrial consumers is the need for cost-effective load management,” he said in a statement.
Besides targeting the public, Dr. Alawaji said: “We will also spread the message among teachers, students and industrial consumers.”
The ministry is drafting new regulations as part of a national program to optimize energy use that will also involve King Abdul Aziz City for Science Technology and other agencies.
The deputy minister announced that the regulatory authority for the electricity sector is about to review the power tariff, though not necessarily with a view to raising prices. “It does not mean that the tariff would be revised upward or downward,” he said. Rather, it “will be calculated on a scientific basis in order to ensure a fair tariff for both consumers and suppliers. The revised tariff will be approved, perhaps, a year from now.
“The power consumption needs of domestic, industrial and agricultural consumers during peak and lean period will be evaluated in working out the new tariff structure,” he added.
One measure is to introduce a “smart meter” that calculates the cost on the basis of power consumed during day and night, between the peak period and the normal period.
Power consumption in the Kingdom was growing between four and six percent annually, he said. This year, the total installed capacity is 30,000MW, while the peak load recorded last summer was about 27,000MW. “For this summer, we expect the peak load to be at least four percent more than last year due to factors such as population growth, increase in housing units, agricultural and industrial development.”
Dr. Alawaji said the government was formulating regulations to formalize its strategy to encourage private sector participation in the power sector, especially in the areas of power generation and power transmission.
The Saudi Electricity Co. (SEC), he pointed out, has already announced several projects for private sector partnership in addition to integrated power and water projects, where the private sector could enter both in terms of financial and technical resources.
The power sector needed an investment of SR46.3 billion to produce 2,027,500MW of electricity during the period 2006-2017, he said. As for investment in the transmission sector, SR7.96 billion is needed for 3,805 km of transmission lines during the same period.
He said SEC agreed that investors could undertake the projects on a BOT (build-operate-transfer) basis, with the investment recovery period ranging from 15 years for the transmission projects to 20 years for power generation projects. They are also assured of transparency and fair competition in the market. Some new projects have already sprung up in Jubail, Yanbu and elsewhere in the Eastern Province in collaboration with Saudi Aramco.
