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Jordan's electricity situation stable

AMMAN - The electricity situation in the Kingdom is "stable" and the effects of slight systematic power cuts have been minimal, energy officials stressed on Sunday.

At a press meeting to address power cuts witnessed during a heatwave earlier this month, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Khalid Irani underlined that energy officials coped well with an "unprecedented" electricity demand without disrupting citizens' daily lives.

Going off the average electricity demand growth rate of 7 per cent between 2000-2008, energy officials had originally anticipated the maximum load to stand at 2,460 megawatts (MW) this year.

Due to the heatwave that affected the Kingdom earlier this month, bringing temperatures several degrees above their annual average, however, the maximum load reached 2,650MW.

To make matters worse, when temperatures in the Kingdom go above 38ûC, the Kingdom's generation capacity diminishes "considerably", dropping from 2,600MW to 2,300MW, National Electric Power Company ( NEPCO ) Director Ghaleb Maabreh told reporters.

In order to cope with demand at peak times, when demand surpassed both locally generated and imported electricity, systematic power cuts were carried out equally among the three national power companies in different areas across the Kingdom, the Electricity Regulatory Commission ( ERC ) Chief Commissioner Suleiman Hafez explained.

During yesterday's press conference, officials defended the planned cuts, which they said did not exceed one hour per area and saved up to hundreds of megawatts.

According to Maabreh, the alternative would be costly power generation.

"Each megawatt of electricity costs the country JD1 million. We have to ask ourselves, is it really worth it?" Maabreh said.

Irani pointed out that electricity demand has jumped 15.2 per cent since the beginning of the year, up from a 3.1 per cent increases in 2009 and a 4.7 per cent rise in 2008. Such unpredictable peaks in demand make it difficult to project how much the national grid's carrying capacity should be expanded, he explained.

"Nobody could have predicted a 15 per cent increase in demand, which was due mostly to all this hot weather. However, with all of that, Jordan coped," Irani told The Jordan Times.

"Is it worth JD400 million for a two-day peak in the year? That is not something that caused chaos. There were unpleasant cuts, but nothing major and everything was handled well," he added.

In terms of unplanned power cuts, on August 2, a technical malfunction to electrical transmitters led to a half-hour 10MW power cut in Abdali, while on August 21 technical malfunctions in Irbid caused a power outage of 90MW which lasted for 65 minutes. Later that day, cuts were witnessed in Karak of around 15MW for 37 minutes, according to the ministry and the ERC .

Irani stressed that the electricity sector is coordinating with water officials to ensure that disruptions do not affect water pumping stations, adding that areas that house key water facilities are "off limits" to planned power cuts.

In order to keep up with future demand, several projects are in the pipeline to increase the maximum capacity by over 500MW by the end of the year, the officials said.

Irani pointed out that the expansion of the Samra Power Plant, which entails the building of two gas-fire units, will add 280MW to the Kingdom's grid by the end of the year.

The first combined cycle phase of the Qatraneh Power Plant, also expected to be completed by the end of 2010, will generate an additional 240MW.

Meanwhile, the second combined cycle phase of the power plant, being carried out by a consortium comprising Korea Electric Power and Saudi Arabia's Zenel Company, is expected to generate 130MW and will be completed in August 2011, he added.

Future plans include adding 700MW through the establishment of various independent power plants between 2013-2014, according to the ministry.

Hafez stressed that the national grid is capable of taking on the new projects over the next few years, underlining that future developments will not impact electricity cost.

"We will have an increase in capacity and the cost will not be passed on to users," the ERC chief told The Jordan Times on the sidelines of the press meeting.

By Taylor Luck

© Jordan Times 2010