Abstract
Efforts to integrate power systems and markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are gaining momentum. With rapidly growing regional electricity demand, the development of an integrated electricity market has the potential to offer a multitude of benefits to participating countries. This will require sufficient interconnection capacity to efficiently utilize surplus power while taking advantage of price and demand diversity in participating countries. Developing cross-border interconnections entails significant investment, and financing this investment has often been challenging. The Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority (GCCIA), formed in 2001 to link the power systems of the GCC countries, has successfully built interconnections with ~3,850 megawatts (MW) of aggregate capacity (Figure 1). However, the existing capacity is highly underutilized for various reasons.
