Board Chairman of the GCC Interconnection Authority (GCCIA) Sheikh Nawaf Al-Khalifa said on Sunday that exchange of electricity among GCC countries would boost energy security and prevents outages by 100 percent, as well as cut costs of building and
maintaining new stations.

GCCIA marked the beginning of electricity trade, he said and noted the power exchange among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries reached 1.250 million megawatts. Sheikh Nawaf was addressing the electricity trade forum, discussing the development of energy
markets with the objective of reviving economy in the GCC – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.

This exchange of electricity, he said, triggered creation of an energy trading platform which has been signing daily contracts to purchase and sell electricity. Electricity trading, said Sheikh Nawaf, was confidential and could generate up to US$one billion in income.

“The trade of energy maintains sustainable environment and contributes to energy security, which means permanent energy supply,” he said. Sheikh Nawaf noted electricity exchange among GCC countries exceeded 80 percent in 2018-19.

Mohammad Bushehri, Undersecretary of Kuwait Ministry of Electricity and Water, said there were plans to link the interconnection grid among the six GCC countries to include Jordan, iraq, Turkey and Europe. He said GCC countries have plans to increase energy production.

Bushehri said more than 1,000 electricity linkage incidents took place since 2009. “We are talking about safety of electricity networks in the GCC because they rely on the GCCIA in case of malfunction in any power station,” he added.


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