The authorities concerned with implementing renewable energy projects are burdened by the routine documentary cycle, which begins with preparing project documents, floating the tenders and awarding the contracts to obtaining the approvals of the regulatory authorities, which has led to the cancellation of more than one project, after reaching its final stages.
The authorities say, the achievement in this area over 10 years is 1 percent of the 15 percent (4500 MW) of the total energy projects aspired to be produced in Kuwait, by 2030 (30 thousand MW) has been achieved, reports a local Arabic daily.
While these parties suffer from the bureaucracy in the documentary cycle, these parties, headed by the Public-Private Partnership Projects Authority, in coordination with the Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy, and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, are seeking to implement the two phases of the Shaqaya project, with a total of 3,500 megawatts before 2030, while the authority has so far succeeded in getting the approval of the Central Agency for Public Tenders for the project consultant, who will prepare the project documents, and float them to global alliances and local companies, to implement it according to its schedule.
Although its name has been modified to become the Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy, it has not yet succeeded in establishing a sector concerned with renewable energy projects, and establishing these projects, which will be the mainstay of the energy in future, in various countries of the world, including Kuwait.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electricity and Water is working to implement 144 renewable energy generation projects, 5 of which have been implemented with a capacity of 4,552 kilowatts, while 46 projects are still in the tender stage and will have a capacity of 216,841 kilowatts, while the ministry plans to implement 93 future projects with a capacity of 4,800,170 kilowatts, bringing the total projects to be implemented by the ministry to 5,021,562 kilowatts, or about 502 megawatts.
While a number of observers of renewable energy projects have raised a series of inquiries to government officials about the reason for Kuwait’s delay in implementing its projects, and the obstacles that led to the cancellation of many projects during the past years, they compared Kuwait’s production capacity of renewable energy projects with some Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which have made great strides in this field, adding some renewable energy projects have been postponed for 5 years, to allow their implementation before 2030.