An assessment of the renewable energy market

Kuwait

Ahmed Hamada, general manager of Green Energy, talks to The Energy Year about the Kuwaiti market for renewable energy projects and the diversification of the company’s portfolio. Green Energy is a Kuwait-based company offering solutions for the green building and sustainable solutions domain.

How do you assess the Kuwaiti market for renewable energy projects?
We don’t have many projects in Kuwait, as the market for solar mega projects is limited. We started to see the smaller projects coming in the pipeline after a law had been implemented stating that in all of the government’s new buildings, 15% of the energy intake must be supported by renewable technologies. During Covid-19, suddenly the market was closed, so everything was postponed. 2022 is the real start of the market.
However, for the market to really grow, we need government incentives and regulations to be put in place. We need incentives for new projects and for homeowners to implement greener technologies. We need regulations to ensure that meters are put in place in order to provide more transparency. In commercial buildings, submetering is a solution to allow end-users to understand their consumption of power and water.
The government also needs to enhance small- and medium-sized companies. It’s been said that the success of the country is tied to the success of the new emerging companies like Twitter, Facebook or Tesla. All of them were small, and they have become gigantic.
A proactive government attitude can even uncover new opportunities. Oil trading and transport is an important part of Kuwait’s income. Couldn’t we use the sea currents generated by oil tankers to generate energy?

How has Green Energy diversified its portfolio of services?
We have diversified the solution to offer an integrated green approach: LED lighting, solar systems, grey water systems, etc. We can also service electric vehicle chargers – in fact, we are one of the pioneers, if not the first to start to implement these charging stations in Kuwait in 2017. We are also in the energy auditing business, which ensures sustainability. If you need to evaluate a building’s performance, you need to understand the building envelope. Focusing on energy and water costs can really decrease a company’s operating expenditures.

What is your vision of the future for Green Energy?
We would like to position ourselves to be second to none. We are aiming to be the pioneer, the leader, the one stop shop for green building solutions. What we do now is not just solar energy. We offer a complete package. We can reduce your energy, your water consumption, by allowing us to access your building and identify opportunities.
Our aim is to be the leader in Kuwait as a green solutions provider, but we are also looking at recycling. We’re waiting as well for the government to allocate more industrial lands. This will assist us in applying for a recycling facility in our domain of business.

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