Kuwait resorts to power cuts amid scorching heat wave

Aerial view overlooking modern skyline of Kuwait city, Kuwait (Shutterstock)

ALBAWABA - Kuwait has confirmed that it is having difficulty meeting the spike in demand that has been caused by the excessive heat of summer, according to AFP, resulting the government to declare that it would be temporarily cutting electricity in some areas of the country throughout peak consumption hours.

Kuwait's Ministry of Electricity, Water, and Renewable Energy has announced that the planned outages, which might last up to two hours a day, were attributed to the power plants' incapacity to handle increasing demand during peak hours due to rising temperatures when compared with the same time last year.

In order to prevent the ministry from having to take the same measure again, Kuwait additionally advised the public to reduce their electrical use during the peak hours of 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, as reported by Kuwaiti Times, which points to some studies saying the ministry of energy is facing an electricity deficit of 1,331 MW this year, expected to rise to 1,440 MW the following year, and as much as 1,650 MW in 2026.

Nadim Farajalla, chief sustainability officer at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, has stated according to Bloomberg that “it’s not only for Kuwait, it’s the entire region that is going to be suffering from this,” adding that “The length of heat waves is growing.”

While scorching summer heat is nothing new to Kuwait, the whole Middle East is experiencing extreme heatwaves, as shown by the hundreds of heat-related fatalities that have been recorded during Saudi Arabia's annual Hajj pilgrimage and Egypt's acute electricity shortages.

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