Arab power grid on track

Oct 26 - Gulf Daily News, Manama, Bahrain

Plans to connect the entire Arab world through a single power grid are on track to be completed by 2014, a senior official said yesterday.

The final studies are being conducted on an undersea connection in the Red Sea after which tenders for the construction will be floated, said Electricity and Water Authority chief executive officer Dr Abdulmajeed Al Awadhi.

"This is expected early next year and the whole project should take about two years to complete," he told the GDN.

Dr Al Awadhi was speaking on the sidelines of an open day held as part of celebrations to mark the fifth anniversary celebrations of the Hidd Power Plant, at the MÅ¡venpick Hotel, Muharraq.

"The GCC grid is already operational with five of the countries having joined," he said.

"The sixth, Oman, will be joining shortly and that will complete the grid."

Dr Al Awadi said Saudi Arabia will then be linked to Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Libya.

"Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia will join in soon, after which the Arab Power Grid will be completed," Dr Al Awadhi said.

He said a direct power link between the Arab world and Europe would then become possible since there would be a link between Morocco and Spain.

"We can then anticipate power sharing between the Arab world and Europe, with us getting power from them in the summer and them getting it from us in the winter," Dr Al Awadhi added.

The official said the GCC power grid had already proved to be a huge success in the last two years when Bahrain had used it to counteract power shortages.

Dr Al Awadhi revealed the first phase of the Al Dur Power Plant would soon be operational after which Bahrain would have sufficient power for the next four years.

He said the second, third and fourth phases of the plant would go on stream shortly afterwards.

"The present Sitra power plant would also be upgraded and modernised in the next few years," said Dr Al Awadhi.

Earlier, plant operator Hidd Power Company (HPC) executive managing director Andrew Biffen said officials planned to set up schemes to train Bahrainis to take up graduate positions.

"We have a 55 per cent Bahrainisation rate, which we expect to maintain and even increase," he said.

The company was set up with an investment of $1.2 billion (BD453 million) in July 2006 after the ownership of the Bahrain government-operated Hidd Power Plant was transferred to a consortium of International Power and Sumitomo Corporation.

Since then it has produced more than 22,000,000 Mega Watt hours of electricity and more than 100 billion gallons of water for Bahrain.

The plant generates electricity and steam by burning natural gas in five large gas turbines and related heat recovery boilers. The steam is then used to power water distillation vessels which convert sea water into high quality drinking water.

The plant has an electrical capacity of 1000MW, equivalent to 1.34m horsepower and can produce 90m gallons of drinking water per day.

The plant contributes 992MW to the national power grid of a total installed capacity of 2,797MW, with the rest being contributed by Al Ezzel, Riffa, Sitra and Muharraq.

mandeep@gdn.com.bh

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