KUWAIT: The 14th meeting of the GCC electrical grid authority got underway here on Thursday to discuss the annual report (2014) and several proposed plans.
The authority executive chief, Ahmad Ali Ibrahim, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on the sidelines of meeting that one of the most significant accomplishments, last year, was Oman's joining of the body, in addition to opening the headquarters in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, adding that with the 2014 completion of the three phases of the joint power project which started operating in 2009, the authority has succeeded in attaining the key objective for establishing it.
He indicated that the GCC countries, six years after start of operating the power grid and achieving the aspired goals, could now shift attention to energy swap and commercial dealings among the authority's member states. He also hinted that such an accomplishment would pave way for setting up the joint Arab energy market.
Jassem Al Nouri, Kuwait's assistant undersecretary for electrical networks, said the grid proved quite useful when Kuwait switched to it during a major outage in February.
He added that today's talks would deal with hiking output, due to rising demand, at six to10 percent per year, in the GCC countries, as well as the grid usage fees (2015-19). Al Nouri denied alleged negative impact of the joint network on the local networks in the GCC countries.
QNA
