Middle East facing power black-outs

A gap between the growth in power generation and energy consumption could cause unplanned blackouts at industrial sites an industry expert has predicted.

Speaking at the Dubai Green Building Conference co-hosted by the American University in Dubai and Sesam Business Consultants, Vicente Raurich, group business development, Siemens Building Technologies, reported: “As the accelerating economic growth in the GCC countries outperforms the considerable efforts undertaken to expand the power generation and distribution capacity, it is clear that power shortages will become a major problem in the future.

“The utility providers may schedule a black-out of two to three hours per week for big consumers like industrial clients, hotels, universities or entire residential blocks,” he predicted. “How often this will occur depends on the gap in demand and supply, and will change throughout the seasons.”

Raurich predicted that due to the large business growth in the Middle East, power consumption will rise by 50%, while power generation is only expected to increase by 30% in comparison.

Raurich stressed that installing features such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (hvac) control, low voltage systems and building management systems into properties will provide long-term energy savings and user benefits. “The time will come when utility providers will give advantages to customers with energy saving measures installed,” he stated.

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