Saudi Arabia requires alternative power resources to meet demand

Saudi Arabia needs to develop alternative energy resources as power consumption for industrial growth and transportation increases in the world’s largest oil supplier, a senior energy official said.

Energy demand in the kingdom will increase to more than 8 million barrels of oil equivalent a day by 2028, Hashim Yamani, president of King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, said at a conference in Riyadh today. That compared with 3.4 million barrels of oil equivalent a day last year, he said.

Local consumption may “seriously hamper the kingdom’s ability to meet international demand for oil,” Yamani said. “We will need to usher in a new energy mix to meet local needs, as well as maintain Saudi Arabia’s leadership role in the changing global energy landscape.”

Saudi Arabia said in April it was building King Abdullah City in Riyadh to help the Arab world’s biggest economy meet rising power consumption as the population expands and industrial demand for energy increases. The kingdom will spend $80bn to increase its power-generation capacity and transmission network in the next decade as demand rises to 65,000 megawatts in 2018.

“It is expected that electricity demand in Saudi Arabia will triple by 2032,” Yamani said in a speech. “The demand for oil has also been growing at an alarming rate. Over the past four years, the total local demand on oil has grown 27 percent.”