EWA President: Remarkable Drop in Electricity Failure Percentages to 13 Percent
and number of Outages to 5 Percent
His Excellency, Engineer Kamal bin Ahmed Mohammed, President of the Electricity and Water Authority (EWA), emphasized that the Authority constantly seeks to achieve its goals in relation to the sustainability of efficient and effective services to the citizens and residents of the Kingdom of Bahrain, in accordance with highest standards.
His Excellency noted the efforts made by EWA to cope with the increasing electrical loads in the Kingdom this summer, stressing that Bahrain's efficient performance in providing electricity and water services reflect the volume of investments in infrastructure, the quality of EWA's technical teams, the utilisation of advanced technologies and their contribution to achieving lower failure rates compared to last year. Collectively, these efforts resulted in a significant decrease in outages this summer.
HE the President stated that despite breaking the record of electricity load this summer, the percentage of failures in high-voltage cables decreased by 11% and the percentage of failures in low-voltage cables dropped by 13%, in comparison with summer of 2022. This was reported when the Kingdom of Bahrain recorded its highest load in its history at 3819 MW, on August 13, 2023. This load increase represents an increase in consumption of 2.99% compared to last summer.
The President noted that the positive impact was reflected through internationally approved network reliability indicators. The Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI), which indicates the average time required to restore service, reported a drop to 43 minutes compared to the international average, which is around 115 minutes. The System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) which measures the total sustained interruption duration for the average customer, declined to 4.43 minutes compared to the international average of 116 minutes. These figures confirm the quality of the Kingdom's electricity network and its ability to provide reliable services, which ultimately supports the infrastructure and economic development of the Kingdom of Bahrain
His Excellency confirmed that EWA has succeeded in achieving a 5% reduction in the number of power outages in the Kingdom compared to last years, despite experiencing exceptional temperatures and high humidity levels during this year's summer season. EWA was also able to lower the duration required to restore electricity to customers to less than one hour.
The President emphasized that the Authority is working on a precautionary plan before the next summer, to carry out all necessary preventive and periodic maintenance work to maintain the stability of the grid.
HE Kamal Ahmed Mohammed expressed his gratitude and appreciation to the Electricity Distribution and Transmission teams for their notable efforts and their effective role in achieving these positive results.
Finally, HE the President affirmed that EWA is constantly working to implement several strategic projects aimed at raising the capacity, efficiency, reliability and quality of electricity transmission and distribution networks, enhancing safe operation and maintaining the stability of the electrical grid in the Kingdom of Bahrain.