Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water, and Renewable Energy has announced that certain areas may experience power outages today (Thursday) during peak hours, with outages lasting between one to two hours if necessary, as detailed in the attached schedules.
The ministry stated that it will announce the scheduled outage times for each area one hour before the disconnection via its official social media accounts.
The Ministry of Electricity in Kuwait had previously announced the initiation of a program to reduce electricity loads in high-consumption areas to address the shortfall in electricity production. In a statement regarding power outages in parts of the six governorates, the ministry explained that the outages are due to the inability of power generation plants to meet the increasing demand for electricity during peak periods, coupled with higher temperatures compared to the same periods in previous years.
The ministry added that, to protect the stability of the electrical system, it has taken some precautionary measures, including scheduled outages lasting from one to two hours at most.
The ministry urged customers across all categories to conserve electricity during peak hours, from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM, to reduce electrical loads.
On Wednesday, more than 40 areas experienced power outages during peak hours, with loads exceeding 15,700 megawatts amid rising temperatures. The ministry also utilized 400 megawatts from the Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Grid to cover the production shortfall.
The peak load for this year is expected to reach 17,600 megawatts, which matches the ministry’s safe production capacity. This indicates that scheduled outages may recur in case of emergencies or insufficient production to meet the growing consumption. The ministry has called on consumers to conserve energy, especially during peak hours, and announced that it will implement various technical measures to reduce network waste and cover increasing consumption.
The unified call center received 13,000 calls yesterday reporting outages.
In the same context, Assistant Undersecretary for Transmission Networks at the ministry, Faisal Al-Samait, confirmed that none of the main or secondary transformer stations went out of service, stressing that the transmission network was operating at full efficiency during the outages. Sources indicated that any faults at transformer stations affect only the areas they supply and not other regions, as was the case yesterday.
