Kuwait orders factories to close for summer power saving

• Daily six-hour shutdown ordered
• High demand for electricty
• ‘Legal measures’ against violations

Kuwait has told its industrial facilities to suspend operations for six hours daily during summer as part of a power rationalisation plan spurred by severe electricity shortages due to high demand.

The Public Authority for Industry (PAI) said on its website this week that industrial units in the Gulf emirate must shut down during peak hours from 11am to 5pm within the saving plan, which will start at the beginning of June.

Although Kuwait is hydrocarbon rich it has little gas to spare to fire power stations. Electricity consumption peaks during summer under the pressure of demand for air conditioning as temperatures soar and so-called “brown-outs” are common.

“PAI will take legal measures against anyone who is found to be violating the instructions to rationalise electricity consumption… The order remains in force indefinitely,” the authority said.

The Arabic language daily Alqabas said the electricity ministry will exclude certain industrial units from the power cuts, including drug and food factories.

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It quoted ministry sources as saying consumption by industrial facilities in Kuwait accounts for nearly 17 percent of total power demand.

Mahmoud Bushehri, the minister of electricity, water and renewable energy, has revealed plans to tackle the power supply shortages, which have widened over the past few years because production has been outstripped by growth in demand.

Bushehri said domestic demand exceeds 19,000MW during summer and said that Kuwait needs to rationalise power consumption during peak hours.

Bushehri said the new projects also include renewable energy to allow Kuwait to attain a target of expanding the share of renewable sources to 30 percent of the total energy mix within the next four years.

Alqabas cited a government report in 2023 which warned that Kuwait could suffer from a power deficit of 2,000MW and 2,500MW in the summers of 2025 and 2026.