NEPCO targets 99.96% network availability by 2026

AMMAN — The National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) is set to improve the reliability of its transmission network, aiming to achieve an availability rate of 99.96 per cent by 2026, an improvement on last year's 99.92per cent, the company announced in its annual report released on Monday.

The report showed a 2.1 per cent increase in renewable energy generation capacity, from 1,583MW in 2022 to 1,617MW. 

Traditional power generation also saw an increase of 5.6 per cent from 4,208 MW to 4,443 MW, the figures showed.

Electricity purchases rose by 3.4 per cent, from 20,763 GWh to 21,473 GWh, while electricity sales increased by 3.2 per cent, from 20,446 GWh to 21,105 GWh. 

Transmission capacity increased by 3.4 per cent from 119 GWh to 123 GWh, according to the report.

Transmission losses fell from 1.92 per cent to 1.81 per cent. The length of the 400 kV network reached 1,906 km and the 132 kV network increased from 3,973 km to 3,983 km, while peak load capacity increased by 5.7 per cent from 4,010 MW to 4,240 MW.

The report also highlighted that the number of outages per 100 km of network was 46.2 times, with an average outage duration of 62.9 minutes, for a total of 73.1 hours of downtime.

According to the strategic plan for 2024-2026, NEPCO aims to increase the share of local resources in the energy mix from 34 per cent to 36.2per cent by 2026, while increasing the share of renewable energy from 18.6per cent to 22per cent and reducing unsupplied energy from 0.01per cent to 0.005per cent.

NEPCO also plans to expand its grid connections from four to five countries and at the same time maintain transmission losses at 1.94 per cent. 

The company also aims to reduce the accident frequency rate per 200,000 working hours from 2.9 to 2.8 and implement two digital transformation projects.

 NEPCO is also preparing to participate in local and international competitions in the electricity sector.