Interested in building a 70 megawatt solar power farm in the next three years? Kuwait’s looking for companies who want to join a three-phase process to generate a total of 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2030.
Global trends in energy have shown a movement toward renewable energy as outlined in the United Nations Environmental Program – UNEP Renewable Energy Policy Network report. This is illustrated by the huge amount of investment seen in these industries over the past several years. While fossil fuels will continue to make up the majority of energy used by humans, renewables, at least, are becoming viable.
The following chart shows healthy levels of production across the spectrum of renewable energy sources showing significant increases in both amount of energy output and investment.
www.unep.org_pdf
OPEC Countries Getting Into The Renewables Game
Kuwait, a longtime member of OPEC, recently announced a long-term plan, to be accomplished over the next 17 years, to produce 15% of its total energy needs from renewable sources.
For phase one in this process, Kuwait is accepting bids for its first solar energy farm that will produce 70 MW of electricity by 2016 on a 39-square mile (100 km²) area in Shagaya, a desert zone near Kuwait City near its borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
This project will provide enough electricity to power 100,000 homes. The second and third phases will add 930 MW and 1,000 MW. Kuwait currently uses 126 million barrels of oil equivalent for electricity production of about 14,000 MW each year.
Shagaya 2000 MW multi technology renewable energy park (Image Courtesy www.csptoday.com)
A total consortium of 37 pre-qualified for the bid. The project is to be multifaceted in that it will not include just solar energy, but wind energy as well.
