What power needs
The UAE needs to invest at least $33 billion to meet its expected additional 16GW capacity requirement over the medium term, the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation has said in its latest report. The Mena will have to invest $260 billion to meet electricity demand.
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dammam — The UAE needs to invest at least $33billion to meet its expected additional 16GW capacity requirement over the medium term, the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation, Apicorp, forecasted in its latest research report, published on Tuesday.
The country is pushing strongly to diversify its energy sources in the power mix, and Apicorp estimates that nearly 10GW of capacity additions are already in execution, including 5.6GW of nuclear, the monthly report noted, adding, “Solar power also features heavily in the UAE’s plans and is expected to account for 25 per cent of the generation mix once its latest $13.7 billion (5GW) solar park is fully commissioned.”
As for the Mena region, the report pointed out that it will require $260 billion of investment to meet rising and suppressed electricity demand.
In the GCC, governments have coped well with rising electricity demand, the report of the multilateral development bank’s report for this month said. However, recent increases in electricity prices in Saudi Arabia will slow demand growth. In the Mashreq region, inadequate investment and political instability have weighed on the power sector, and persistent blackouts continue to put pressure on governments to take action.
Apicorp’s report also noted that electricity demand and consumption have been growing rapidly in the Mena region, driven by population growth and urbanisation, ris- ing income levels, industrialisation and low electricity prices. While economic growth has slowed compared with historical highs, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, still expects an increase of 3.2 per cent in 2018 and 2019, rising to 3.5 per cent in 2022. The region’s population is also expected to grow at an average rate of 1.5 per cent per year in that same period, the report noted.
In order to meet this rising demand, Apicorp estimates that Mena power capacity will need to expand by an average of 6.4 per cent each year between 2018 and 2022, which corresponds to additional capacity of 117GW. Apicorp forecasts that $152 billion will be needed to deliver this additional capacity, with a further $108 billion needed for transmission and distribution.
Turning to more specific parts of the Mena region, the GCC dominates the landscape. Whilst it currently represents 47 per cent, or 151GW, of current Mena power generating capacity, Apicorp forecasts thatthe it will need to invest $55 billion to create 43GW of additional generating capacity and another $34 billion in transmission and distribution over the next five years. Some countries in the GCC,
Solar power also features heavily in the UAE’s plans and is expected to account for 25 per cent of the generation mix once its latest $13.7 billion (5GW) solar park is fully commissioned notably Saudi Arabia, have also taken steps to control demand, as a means of keeping required levels of investment in capacity at manageable levels. This was the thinking behind the Saudi Arabian government’s most recent round of price increases, as demand had risen significantly on the back of cheap electricity, and with lower oil revenues, subsidising high levels of consumption is no longer sustainable. To give an idea of the scale of the increases, Saudi Arabia increased electricity tariffs from SAR0.05/kWh to SAR0.18/kWh for residential consumption levels below 6,000kWh/month.
On the investment side, the required additional generating capacity in the GCC will be found in traditional and renewable forms of power generation. Saudi Arabia will lead the way in both, with the country needing to invest around $21bn, which will increase capacity to 92GW. Saudi Arabia is also kick-starting its renewable-energy initiative, seeking to develop 10GW of solar and wind energy by 2023. — Wam