GCC states to invest $100b in renewable energy projects over 20 years

Kuwait: Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states plan to pump up to $100 billion (Dh367.3 billion) into renewable energy projects over the coming two decades.

Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) quoted Samira Ahmad Omar, director-general of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), as saying that such robust funding aims to meet the growing energy consumption in the GCC states, estimated at 3 per cent a year.

In a speech to the opening ceremony of the sixth Middle East and North Africa Renewable Energy Conference (Menarec-6), Omar attributed the increasing demand for energy to economic transformations, including the tendency towards establishing industrial and service bases, and the growth of population.

“The environmental challenges relating to pollution and global warming left us with no choice other than relying heavily on clean and renewable energy, which is the focus of energy research circles worldwide,” she stressed.

“The GCC states, as well as other countries in the Middle East and Africa, have promising opportunities in the field of exploitation of the solar energy, given the fact that they enjoy [an] equatorial climate and [sunlight hours] of [up to] 1,400 to 1,800 hours a year.”

“Kuwait [is one of the first countries] that sought to tap into the renewable energy. In 1978 KISR designed and operated a pilot solar energy station with a generating capacity of 100 kilowatts,” Omar said, noting that the project was backed by Germany.

KISR pursued research into renewables and their utilisation in seawater desalination and electricity generation.