Electric Power System Profile in Kuwait: Electricity and Water Generation, Fuel Consumption, and Cost Estimation

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to enhance the sustainability of the electric power system for the State of Kuwait by helping establish an integrated model that links electricity generation, water production, fuel consumption, and the associated cost. By analyzing and collecting data from separate resources for 2014, various conclusions are drawn. Most importantly is the notable impact of the dilemma Kuwait faces regarding excessive water production rates and, consequently, the maintainability of huge water storage facilities, as water and electricity production are very closely related and the electricity demand varies greatly over the course of a year, whereas the water demand stays relatively the same. The solution to this problem is the establishment of a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) interconnected water grid similar to the already established electricity grid. The study extends the 1-year period to include the monthly fuel consumption and price and the total fuel cost of the period from 2010 until the end of 2015, from which it is observed that Kuwait relies primarily on heavy fuel oil (as a base load fuel) for power generation, followed by natural gas. Crude oil consumption has steadily decreased throughout the years, whereas gas oil consumption has increased, as crude oil is a valuable export and evidence has been presented supporting the apparent move toward consuming greener fuels. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of the fuel consumption data against prices is conducted in which no definitive fuel allocation method is found to exist.

Unit-Based Emissions Inventory for Electric Power Systems in Kuwait: Current Status and Future Predictions

“…Kuwait relies on seven power plants for power production, all of which are strategically located in close proximity to seawater, in accordance with the cogeneration technologies used in those power plants to simultaneously desalinate seawater. The installed capacity at each of those power plants can be found in [31].…”

“…This model structure was chosen because of the apparent seasonality in the energy consumption profile of Kuwait highlighted in [31], on the basis of which a reasonably accurate model that accounted solely for the monthly seasonality would suffice. In addition, relying on other parameters for estimating the future emissions or energy demand such as population growth, growth domestic product, or electricity unit cost would only add to the uncertainty of future predictions because those values would have to be predicted in their own rights due to the absence of proper data reflecting their future outlook, unlike other studies such as [25][26][27].…”

Modeling the impact of reducing sulfur content of liquid fuels consumed by power plants on the air quality of Kuwait using AERMOD

“…The impact of the air pollutants on the air quality depends on the types and amount of the consumed fossil fuel, as well as the meteorological conditions. In Kuwait, choosing the specific amount of each type of fuel is based on their availability throughout the year (Alhajeri et al, 2018).…”

“…To address this problem, power plants in Kuwait will be used as a case study to examine the proposed mitigation strategy. Most of power plants in Kuwait rely heavily on HFO and CO to meet the power demands, and both fuels have significantly high sulfur content (Alhajeri et al, 2019b;Alhajeri et al, 2018). In earlier work, Al-Fadhli et al (2019) examined the impact of fuel switching on minimizing the ambient SO2 concentrations; however, this paper will focus on the potential benefits of reducing sulfur content of liquid fuels on the air quality.…”

“…The data for hourly based consumption of hydrocarbon fuels by the power plants of Kuwait was first made available in 2014. In addition, the consumed fuel mix has not changed since power plants, in Kuwait, still rely on the same 4 types of fossil fuel to generate electricity, albeit at slightly different proportions depending on fuel availability (Alhajeri et al, 2018).…”