Kuwait has reduced electricity supplies in some agricultural and industrial areas, with demand increasing in conjunction with maintenance work at power plants in preparation for the summer.
Cut-offs began before extreme temperatures arrived, highlighting the challenges facing one of the world's richest countries, in light of its inability to meet growing demand during the summer due to limited production capacity.
Kuwait had to implement rare scheduled outages last year when temperatures rose significantly.
The Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy said on Wednesday that the power supply was cut to areas including the port of Abdullah and the Shuwaikh area on the Arabian Gulf. She added that the high loads and the need for maintenance work in order to equip power plants to operate at full capacity this summer led to temporary reductions in some areas and for limited hours.
Experts in Kuwait have warned for decades of an electricity crisis looming, as a result of reluctance to establish new power plants to keep up with growing demand, at a time when the government significantly supports electricity prices. The government often appeals to residents to rationalize consumption, but there is no real financial incentive to do so.
Kuwait is part of an interconnected electricity network between the GCC countries, and last year it bought electricity from neighboring Oman. It also signed a new 15-year agreement with Qatar to supply LNG, with the aim of easing pressure on power plants.
Although recent electricity cuts are still limited in scope, they are a warning to several countries in the Middle East, where summer temperatures may exceed 50 degrees Celsius. Iraq has been struggling for years with power outages due to the inability of its plants to keep up with demand, while Egypt witnessed a severe energy crisis in 2024 in which it turned from a gas exporter to an importer. Hundreds also died of heat during the Hajj season last year in Saudi Arabia.
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