In a first of its kind at this time of year, the Ministry of Electricity, Water and Energy in Kuwait announced that it “may be forced to cut off electricity due to emergency maintenance procedures for some electricity generation units in parts of some residential areas.”The Ministry of Electricity attributed the outage to “maintaining the stability of the country’s electrical system.”
According to the newspaper,OpinionKuwait: “Power will be cut off from 11 residential areas: Abdullah Al-Mubarak, Farwaniya, Sabah Al-Ahmad, Al-Naseem, Jahra, Jabriya, Al-Nahda, Andalusia, Sulaibikhat, Shuwaikh Residential, and Al-Shamiya.”
Under the title “Programmed power outages return,” Al-Rai said: “In a precedent that is the first of its kind at this time of year, the Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy was forced to resort to programmed power outages in residential areas, as a result of the high electrical loads compared to the volume of production available to it.”
She added: “While the consumption rate yesterday recorded an electrical load of 17,100 megawatts, the consumption rate recorded on August 27 of 17,640 megawatts remains the highest electrical load recorded in the history of Kuwait.”
Al-Rai quoted a responsible source in the ministry as saying, “The reason the ministry resorted to the programmed power outage is due to three main factors: the sudden shutdown of electricity production units in some stations, the rise in the maximum temperature, which reached 49 degrees; and the start of the school year.”
The source said, “The continued rise in temperature until this time is strange, as it coincided with the shutdown of two production units in the southern Al-Zour and Al-Subiya stations with a capacity of 390 megawatts, in addition to the start of the school season,” which increased the loads, noting that “the coincidence of these factors forced the ministry to cut off power to farms and some residential areas.”
Power outages to reduce loads on the grid in Kuwait are known as “programmed outages,” whereby power is cut off in some areas between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., which are peak consumption periods due to heavy use of air conditioners. The Ministry of Electricity resorted to programmed outages this year for the first time in many years.
Last August, the Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy in Kuwait announced that electricity would be cut off in parts of 8 residential areas, and attributed the reason to a malfunction in fuel (gas) supplies that occurred yesterday, which led to the failure of a number of electricity generating units in the Al-Subiya and Doha West power and water distillation stations.
Last updated: September 11, 2024 – 11:00
Suggest a correction
2024-09-12 00:51:22