Soon on arrival in Madinah, the king visited the Prophet's Mosque where he performed the Asr prayer and visited the grave of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and of Caliphs Abu Bakr and Omar.

King Abdullah watched an audio-visual presentation of the new projects, which included four 380KV lines linking Madinah with the central, eastern, western and southern networks.

The king spoke to the engineers working on the projects through satellite and wished them every success. The ceremony was attended by a large number of princes and senior officials.

Water and Electricity Minister Abdullah Al-Hussayen said the linkage of the Kingdom's regions with a single grid would ensure adequate supply of electricity to residential, business and industrial areas.

"At present, there is surplus supply of about 2,000 megawatt in the Eastern, Riyadh, Qassim and Hail provinces due to fall in temperature. This surplus can be utilized to meet the demand in the Makkah province, especially in Jeddah, through the interconnection of networks."

Al-Hussayen said the new interconnection projects launched by the king would help supply 1,000 megawatts from the Kingdom's Eastern Region to the Western Region in the first phase.

"The completion of these projects in 15 months will lead to the linkage of 93 percent of networks."

He said the third phase of Yanbu desal plant would be carried out with the support of the private sector to supply 400,000 cubic meters (88 million gallons) of water and 1,600 megawatts daily to meet the growing water and power requirements in Madinah province. The new plant will be operational within four years.

Al-Hussayen said the power grid project linking the GCC countries would be ready by the end of this year. He said the ministry would launch a nationwide campaign this Saturday to encourage the public to use electricity prudently.

He added that the Saudi Electricity Company has implemented a number of projects worth SR80 billion to give power connections to 5.3 million clients. He said the electricity projects under implementation would cost more than SR93 billion. The Kingdom's power generation capacity has increased by 60 percent to 35,000 megawatts during the last nine years after the formation of the company.

Madinah Gov. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Majed, who received King Abdullah on arrival in the city, said the royal visit reflected the care and concern of Saudi leaders toward the Prophet's city.

© Arab News 2008

 

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