When the Saudi Electricity Company announced a power outage of an hour and a half last month in order to undertake a grid maintenance program, people here in the Eastern Province suffered. For some citizens, like Naila, the power outage was a nightmare. She suffers from chronic headaches and could not even make tea till 9:30 A. M. when the electricity was finally restored. Her stove, microwave, and kettle are all electric. On the other had, she said that there had been a positive side to the experience. “There were no lights or lamps switched on wastefully, and no sound from the overworked air conditioners. All was quiet. If it hadn't been for my headache, it would have seemed like a peaceful way to live,” she said. “All that I could hear was the sounds of nature – the birds outside the window. It would be great not to have to hear the roar of the car engines in the street, even if only for a day,” she added. But that is just wishful thinking for a nation with a 5.4 percent annual growth rate in power consumption. The GCC's average annual growth of power consumption is triple the global figure, with Saudi Arabia contributing to it in a big way. Many efforts have been made to reduce the power consumption of the public and private sectors, but Saudi society is still very much unaware of the amount of electricity it devours and appears to be quite oblivious to ways to preserve it. In 1998, the Kingdom's electricity sector embarked upon a major restructuring program to achieve sustainable performance. Although progress has been made, a number of challenges remain, including high demand, low generation capacity reserve margins, inefficient energy use, and the need for large capital investments to meet current and future expansion. Electrical energy consumption in Saudi Arabia increased sharply during the last two decades due to rapid economic development, and in the absence of energy conservation measures, peak loads reached 24 GW in 2001 – 25 times their 1975 level. By 2023, they are expected to approach 60 GW. The total investment needed to meet this demand may exceed $90 billion, according to a paper written by officials at the Energy Research Institute, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the Ministry of Water and Electricity (MoWE). Experts say that there is an urgent need to develop energy conservation policies. Sustainable policies of energy conservation in the past due to efforts by MoWE and the Saudi Electricity Company led to peak load savings of more than 871 MW in 2001. In the long term, however, unless sustainable energy policies are developed at a national level, such efforts will be largely ineffective, according to the MoWE and the Energy Research Institute. To address this, policies and programs are being developed for public awareness, energy regulation, legislation and information. JICA, Japan International Cooperation Agency, in collaboration with MoWE launched a master plan study in February, 2007 to finalize energy conservation policies and measures in Saudi Arabia. MoWE and related agencies, representing many investors in the Kingdom's large corporations, were invited to participate “in workshops in Riyadh and the Eastern Province to join the discussions needed for the formulation of the master plan,” said Ihab Sharqawi, Senior Program Manager at JICA. Energy conservation methods include architectural energy conservation technology with laboratory equipment, high efficiency heat pump technology, and new product technology in air conditioners. LG electronics – a key player in the electronics market in the Middle East – has introduced its MPS air conditioning system, which combines multiple compressors in a single air conditioning system thereby reducing energy consumption by a maximum of 70 percent, compared to conventional air conditioners with a single compressor. Energy conservation nationwide can be achieved through cooperation between the public and the private sectors, say industry watchers, a fact endorsed by the study team at JICA. “To promote cooperation of the private sector, the study team conducted workshops with Saudi Aramco and SABIC – well-known companies in Saudi Arabia which are pioneers of private sector energy conservation,” said Sharqawi. “We are devoted to increasing society's awareness of the importance of energy conservation.Without people there can be no conservation of energy,” said Sharqawi. Campaigns by the Japanese organization have also been carried out in schools “to educate young people who are the future of the country about the importance of the conservation of energy,” he added. A Saudi housewife, Maha, described what she calls the growing dependence on electricity and other forms of power ‘an epidemic.' “In this modern day of freedom, liberty, and independence, it is ironic that Man seems to be enslaved by those things that he created for his own comfort,” she said. “People here seem unaware of the importance of energy conservation. Simple acts like switching off the lights in a room which is not being used or switching off an exhaust fan are not on anybody's list of important things to do,” she added. “It is sad to note that luxuries have become dire necessities and the technological advances we have made for our comfort have become things on which we are totally dependent to the extent that we cannot even imagine life without them,” she said. __
