The Minister of Electricity and Water Affairs Dr Abdul Hussein bin Ali Mirza told the weekly media briefing that the Kingdom of Bahrain has the total capacity of 6600MW power, almost 55% higher than the peak usage of 2917MW during the month of September this year.
“We have the capacity of 4000MW in public sector in addition to 2000MW from the private producers and 600MW share from the GCC National Grid, taking the total to 6600MW. Bahrain has no shortage of power whatsoever,” the Minister explained.
“The statistics in the memorandum showed that the measures taken by the Electricity and Water Authority resulted in a significant improvement in the number and duration of power cuts during the summer of this year in comparison to last year. The number of power cuts decreased by 21% in August, 18% in June and July and 27% in May of this year in comparison to last year,” Dr Mirza added.
To a question Dr Mirza said that EWA was taking major steps to streamline the existing complaints, call centers and power outages issues as part of a strategy to make services up to the mark.
Dr Mirza said that per unit electricity costs 28fils and the end consumers pay 3fils per unit, a subsidy of 25fils on each unit. “This is what the government intends to offer the cheapest power tariff to end consumers and we encourage the consumers to clear their arrears at earliest,” he added.
“EWA is also planning to introduce smart meters with remote reading system to ensure the accurate and timely reading of power consumption effectively and objectively. The deployment of smart vehicles around the clock helps the EWA to diagnose and fix the power cuts without digging, an efficient and less time consuming process,” he said.
The Minister also briefed the Cabinet on the memorandum presented by His Excellency the Minister of Electricity and Water Affairs on the outcome of the preparations of the Electricity and Water Authority to handle the summer of 2013.
The statistics in the memorandum showed that the measures taken by the Electricity and Water Authority resulted in a significant improvement in the number and duration of power cuts during the summer of this year in comparison to last year.