China renewable energy cooperation with Kuwait (and everyone, eventually), ChinaMed Project webinar series

Ramadan Kareem! To celebrate the Holy Month I’m offering a 25% discount on all subscriptions until March 30th.

I’m about to board a flight to go on a family vacation so posting will be light for the next week I suspect. However this story from Kuwait caught my eye so I thought I’d get a quick one out while hanging out in the Dubai airport.

I mention the book I’m working on regularly and the motivational trick has been working - I’ve had a pretty good burst of writing over the past few weeks and am getting close to a finished first draft. I can see this thing getting off my desk at some point over the next couple of months and it feels great. I was starting to think it was going to remain a pile of paper with scribbles all over it forever.

The section I’ve been writing is looking at Chinese renewable energy projects in Arab countries, and there’s a lot to cover; it really could be a standalone chapter rather than a subsection. It’s remarkable, really, to see how the world’s largest oil importer has become such a huge source of renewable energy in MENA. With acute needs for support in their energy transitions, Arab countries have been very lucrative markets.

Which brings me to this story out of Kuwait yesterday:

China Tightens Ties to Kuwait With Deal to Expand Solar Power - Bloomberg.

China will help increase capacity at two solar projects in Kuwait, further boosting ties after the two countries agreed to develop a long-delayed strategic port.

The new “framework agreement,” reached after six months of negotiations, will see the expansion of the Al-Shagaya and Al-Abdiliya solar plants, Kuwait’s state-run KUNA news agency reported Monday.

Arab News had more details:

The framework agreement was reached after six months of negotiations, according to Adel Al-Zamel, the undersecretary at the Ministry of Electricity and Water and Renewable Energy, who signed the agreement in Kuwait with Ren Jingdong, the deputy director of the Chinese National Energy Administration.

The agreement outlines a plan, overseen by the Chinese side, for the third and fourth zones of the Al-Shagaya and Al-Abdiliya solar plants projects. Each project will have a joint production capacity of 3,500 megawatts, with the potential to increase to 5,000 megawatts, the Kuwait News Agency reported.

Shagaya Renewable Energy Park, which is in a desert zone near the Kuwait-Saudi border, plays an integral part in Kuwait’s plan to generate 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

I’m not sure which Chinese companies will be involved but if I were a betting man, I’d bet on POWERCHINA since it seems to be the go-to contractor for these types of projects and it’s already had some big ones in the GCC in recent years, including the Al-Kharsaah Solar Power Plant in Qatar and the Ibri Solar Photovoltaic Project in Oman. Writing this newsletter I though I had a pretty good sense of how much China is doing in the region in the renewable energy space, but looking deeply at this sector for a while has been really eye-opening, and I’m starting to see these stories, or potential ones everywhere now. Take this one about Syria, for example:

Syria needs $40bln for power projects - Zawya. There hasn’t been much in the way of China-Syria cooperation in any major infrastructure, let alone energy, but as I read this article I couldn’t help but foresee the MoUs to come for POWERCHINA or JA Solar.

The decade-long civil war has devastated the Arab nation’s infrastructure and depressed power generation to just around 1,300 megawatts (MW), far below the actual needs of nearly 6,500 MW, said Khalid Aboudi, Director General of the Transmission and Distribution Corporation at the Electricity Ministry.

Aboudi told the Washington-based Arab energy website “Attaqa” on Monday that Syria is currently running on 14 power stations, including 3 hydro-electric plants.

“We need to build four new power plants with a generation capacity of 5,000 MW....as for investments, Syria needs around $40 billion to rehabilitate the electricity infrastructure and construct new power stations,” he said.

The word ‘China’ doesn’t appear once in the whole article, but who else is doing big power plant projects like this? The same thing with this story about Algeria from today:

Algeria launches plan for 15 solar power plants - Zawya.

Algeria on Monday broke ground for a 80 megawatts (MW) solar power project as part of a programme to build 15 such plants with a total capacity of 3,200 MW.

Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Mohammed Arqab laid the ground stone for the first project in the Northwestern Bechar province, the official news agency reported.

“This project is part of a programme to build 15 solar power plants in 12 provinces with a combined generation capacity of 3,200 MW,” the report said.

The programme, which will be executed in phases, is also intended to support a government plan to expand renewable sources in the country’s energy mix, it added.

That’s the whole story. No China. Yet. But Algeria is way behind in its renewable energy transition. According to The Maghreb Weekly, “While targeting 22 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, the country missed its 2020 interim goal of 4.5 GW, with projections suggesting renewables may only account for 1% of the energy mix by 2050.” I won’t be surprised if I see some big Algerian contracts in China’s near future.

On a completely different note, the ChinaMed Project team recently announced the "China and the Middle East" Webinar Series for Spring 2025. Lots of interesting topics and good speakers - you’ll want to check it out.

OK, boarding in a bit. Have a great week.