- Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has set Q1/2018 for launch of the 1 GW Dibdibah Solar PV Plant In
- The plant is expected to generate 2,500 GWh a year after commissioning in 2020
- It will be located in the Al-Shegaya Renewable Energy Park in the northwest of the country
- With this plant, Kuwait’s oil industry wants to surpass the national target of 15% renewable energy share by 2030 by 10 years
Kuwait plans to launch the tender for the Al-Dibdibah Photovoltaic Solar Power Plant in Q1/2018, confirmed Shukri Abdul Aziz Al-Mahrous, Deputy CEO of Planning and Finance at Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), when talking to Bloomberg.
KNPC is Kuwait’s national oil refining company and has already issued an expression of interest for the 1 GW project. The EoI submission deadline is September 7, 2017. With this power plant, Kuwait’s oil industry plans to supply 15% of the country’s electricity consumption from solar energy.
The entire 1 GW project is estimated to cost $1.2 billion and is expected to generate 2,500 GWh per year or half of the country’s targeted renewable energy output. Kuwait wants to increase the share of renewable energy in its power consumption to 15% by 2030. Kuwait’s oil industry, which is the country’s largest power user, wants to reach that level already by 2020, beating the national target by 10 years, said Al-Mahrous. Kuwait consumes up to 14 GW of electricity per day in the summer, the power generation capacity is 17 GW, according to Bloomberg.
One of the world’s biggest oil producers, Kuwait wants to build solar power plants while increasing production of petrochemicals and refined products. The Dibdibah plant will be set up in the northwest of the country – the 32 km2 large Al-Shegaya Renewable Energy park. Once it comes online in 2020, it will save 5.2 million barrels of oil a year and reduce carbon emissions by 1.3 million tons, Al-Mahrous told Bloomberg.
