The Director-General of Kuwait Municipality, Engineer Ahmed Al-Manfouhi, confirmed that the entry of electric cars into Kuwait was not been studied during the preparation of studies of the fourth structural plan 2016-2021, despite the presence of a small number of such cars in the Kuwait market at that time, in addition to a number of fast-charging stations for these electric vehicles installed in car parks, indicating that there will be a need for more common charging stations for public use in the future, given the inability of the existing electrical networks of residential units to charge their private cars if they are approved in general.
Al-Rai quoted Al-Manfouhi as saying in his response to a question by a member of the Municipal Council, Hammoud Oqla, regarding the extent of studying the fourth structural plan for the entry of electric cars into Kuwait, added it is not possible to know the real number of cars that will be imported into Kuwait, but expectations are big of electric-powered vehicles over the next ten to twenty years, explaining that “the justification for saying this is that all major global auto manufacturers are committed to supplying electric vehicles.”
He explained during the fourth structural plan, there were approximately 1,485,926 private cars registered in 2015, and this has been at a growth rate of about 2% since 2010, and this growth is expected to continue endlessly, but it may rise with the population reaching the driving age.
Al-Manfouhi pointed out that “the recommendations of the fourth structural plan for the State of Kuwait recommended the need to restructure the tariff, in addition to adopting a policy for the electricity sector with regard to implementing a new tariff and collecting revenues,” noting that “tariff restructuring is one of the pillars of the fourth structural plan, as it is with the tariff at low levels, none of the consumers will be interested in applying sustainable scenarios that reduce consumption and contribute to preserving the environment, and in such a case, the energy network (generation, transmission, and distribution) will continue to grow uselessly and indefinitely in order to meet demand.
He said that in theory, reliance on electric vehicles greatly enhances the pressure on the electric grid, which is why the fourth master plan recommended the introduction of electric vehicles in the context of parallel implementation of other sustainable policies in order to mitigate additional energy requirements and to maintain the expected load as much as possible.
He stressed the need to address the national policy for charging electric vehicles from two perspectives (domestic charging and public charging), as electric vehicle equipment requires the integration of high-energy loads into the public grid system.