JEDDAH — The use of electricity in the Kingdom has increased by 30 percent over the last 20 years and is expected to reduce exports of both oil and gas, said a leading official of Saudi Arabia's initiative to reduce energy in the country. Other countries, however, managed to reduce their use of power by 51 percent over the last 30 years, said Abulaziz Al-Mulhim, head of the awareness campaign of the Saudi Energy Efficiency Program (SEEP). Al-Mulhim, who was speaking at an open workshop with private sector organizations at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) to convince them to reduce consumption of electricity, said the program targeted a 30 percent decrease in energy usage in the Kingdom by 2030. According to him, the Kingdom's annual consumption of petroleum and gas was increasing by around 5 percent. Set up in 2012, SEEP has focused its efforts on reducing energy usage in buildings, transportation, and industry. These three sectors so far consume 90 percent of all power being used in the Kingdom. The program has come up with its own plan to ensure new housing units are using less power. This includes 500,000 units to be built by the Ministry of Housing, 70,000 constructed by Aramco and 4,000 housing units constructed by SABIC. In the industry sector, SEEP will work on reducing energy consumption in the manufacturing of iron, cement, and petrochemicals that accounts for 80 percent of all power being used in the industry sector. The transportation sector, explained Al-Mulhim, still uses a lot of energy because of the lack of public transportation and also because old vehicles that use more power than newer models are still on the roads. SEEP will be obliging companies that import vehicles to provide detailed information about them, including energy usage. Through a public awareness campaign, Al-Mulhim said they would encourage the public to drive vehicles that use less energy. SEEP, said Al-Mulhim, will work in cooperation with the media, the education sector and the private sector as well as government bodies. Recently, the SEEP team visited JCCI to help their businesses reduce their energy consumption. Muhyi Al-Deen Hakami assistant secretary general of JCCI, said the organization would work closely with the program. The JCCI, he said, already has 70,000 members and 1,000 registered factories in Jeddah that will be cooperating with SEEP. SEEP has also contributed in setting up systems to help in the reduction of energy usage. The program also works on setting standards for different machines that enter the Kingdom so they consume less power, in turn leading to more investment in energy efficient methods and research in energy usage reduction techniques. Over 100 experts from 20 different government bodies are working on this SEEP program, including the Ministry of Finance, Saudi Energy Efficiency Center, Ministry of Information, Electricity & Cogeneration Regulatory Authority, Saudi Aramco, Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, the Saudi Standards, Metrology, and Quality Organization and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. According to figures by Aramco, the service sector accounts for 51 percent of energy usage in the Kingdom, transportation 21 percent, industry uses 15 percent and other sectors use 5 percent.
