KUWAIT CITY, June 13, (AFP): Electricity consumption in Kuwait hit an all-time record on Sunday as the temperature raced to a new high for the year in the oil-rich desert Gulf state.
Power consumption peaked at 10,823 megawatts at noon, the highest on record, close to the maximum production capacity of around 11,200 megawatts, the electricity and water ministry showed on its website.
The temperature, meanwhile, soared to 49.5 degrees Celsius (121.1 Fahrenheit) at around 1400 local time (1100 GMT) in Kuwait City and 50 degrees Celsius at Kuwait Airport, the highest this year, according to the state-run met office.
Minimum temperature recorded the previous night was 38 degrees Celsius.
In the open desert at the Kuwait-Iraq border post of Abdali, the temperature soared to 50.1 degrees Celsius at Sunday noon, and the met office is forecasting more of the same for the coming days.
It is not abnormal for temperatures to hit 50 degrees Celsius in Kuwait, but the big heat has arrived early this year.
Electricity and water ministry officials appealed to consumers to switch off any unnecessary electrical appliances and air-conditioning units which consume most of Kuwait’s power production.
The ministry has repeatedly warned that it will be forced to resort to programmed cuts if consumption reaches a critical point where production will not be enough to meet consumption.
The country has not built a new power plant for two decades despite a sharp rise in consumption.
Last September, the Gulf state signed a $2.7 billion deal with US firm General Electric and South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries to build a 2,000-megawatt power plant when it is fully operational by mid-2012.
The gas-fired plant at Subbiya, north of Kuwait City, is set to start production next year.
Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah said in September that Kuwait aims to double its power generation capacity to more than 20,000 megawatts over the next five years.
Kuwait’s Parliament last month passed a law to set up shareholding companies to build new power and water desalination plants in the first privatisation of the sector.
The OPEC member, which operates a cradle-to-grave welfare policy for Kuwaiti nationals, sells power at highly subsidised rates of 0.7 cents per kilowatt/hour to its 1.1 million citizens and 2.35 million foreign residents.