Over the past couple of decades, the kingdom’s annual per capita electricity consumption has been steadily growing by around 7%. One of the key causes for such a high growth is the intensive use of non-energy-efficient equipment, which was dominating the Saudi market. In 2017, the residential sector consumed around 143 TWh, which represents around 48% of the country’s total electricity consumption. The aim of this study is to assess the feasibility of an air conditioning incentive program for citizens from energy and economic sides. This chapter is a detailed study where program gains from energy and economic standpoints were based on substituting participants’ old air conditioning units with new units that are better in performance. The proposed program was designed over an 8-year period with three scenarios where the government will take care of all the capital cost, 75%, and none of the capital cost in these scenarios. The results of this study indicated that an accumulated savings of up to 17.11 TWh by 2025 with NPVs above $13 billion can be achieved in all scenarios. Moreover, it was estimated that the program will add an average of $0.5 billion per year to the kingdom’s GDP over the duration of the program.
Part of the book: Energy Policy