Ministry keen to facilitate procedures

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 22: The government agencies concerned with electrical cars have started, in coordination with local car dealerships, to frame the proposals and scenarios prepared by the bodies in charge of preparing the necessary infrastructure before the dealerships begin selling their electrical cars in the Kuwaiti market.

One of the dealerships is expected to distribute electrical cars from the start of the year 2022, reports Al-Rai daily. In this regard, Ministry of Electricity and Water is studying a mechanism to install charging stations for the electrical cars in the ministry building and the buildings belonging to it, amid expectations that other ministries and government agencies will follow suit.

According to informed sources at the ministry, there is a plan to make these stations exclusively for the cars that the ministry uses in the scope of their work, and not allow any other cars to charge their batteries from those sockets of the ministry.

They said, “What is going on in Ministry of Electricity and Water in this regard is expected to roll out in the rest of the ministries and other governmental agencies and institutions”, stressing the keenness of every government agency on the interest of public funds. T

he sources explained that the issue of installing the charger sockets in different locations is not primarily a matter for the ministry, since the ministry will ultimately hold the facility in which the car chargers are located, whether it is a commercial or industrial complex or public utility societies or others, based on the total consumption readings shown by this meter as per specific tariff for each sector.

These facilities will have the freedom to decide whether to open their chargers to the public or specify the categories they are allowed to supply. There is a possibility of installing special meters on electrical chargers that show the volume of current consumed during the charging of each car’s battery.

The issue that pertains to the technical specifications of chargers for electrical cars, their broad view, the establishment of their infrastructure, and the units of chargers, is a matter that will be looked into by the Public Authority for Industry. The sources affirmed the ministry’s keenness to facilitate procedures related to electrical cars.

They indicated that the ministry intends to submit an official letter to the Fatwa and Legislation Department to seek its opinion in this regard, especially since the consumption tariff differs from one sector to another. This means the support provided by the state represented by Ministry of Electricity and Water to the beneficiaries of its services will differ from one sector to another.

On the other hand, a number of specialists in this matter called on government agencies to benefit from the experiences of countries where electrical cars are prevalent, in terms of ways to calculate costs or distribute points of chargers, and determine the effects of the spread of electrical cars on rising costs of electrical current consumption.