Home About ECRA History Development of Electricity Services Following the Five-Year Development Plans

Development of Electricity Services Following the Five-Year Development Plans

Beginning in 1970 the government started implementing successive five-year development plans for the Kingdom. As part of the first five-year plan the Department of Electricity Services was established in 1972 as a unit in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry with responsibility for planning electrical services for the whole Kingdom. In 1974 the Ministry of Commerce & Industry was reorganized into two sections, the Commerce & Supply Agency and the Industry and Electricity Agency. Also at that time (1974) a very far-reaching decision was taken to fix the electricity tariff at a uniform rate for the whole Kingdom. In 1975 the Ministry of Industry and Electricity was established. The Electricity Agency, one of the two sectors of the Ministry, expanded its role of planning, coordinating, and setting standards for the whole Kingdom. This spate of changes culminated in 1976 with the establishment of the General Electricity Corporation, which had the responsibility of implementing all the ambitious plans for development of electrical services in the Kingdom. Over the period from 1976 to 1981
almost all of the numerous independent electricity companies in the country were subsumed into four regional companies, the so-called Saudi Consolidated Electrical Companies or SCECOs (Eastern, Central, Western and Southern). Isolated pockets of remote areas in the North continued to be served by small companies. During this stage the government managed to expand electrification to the vast majority of settlements in the Kingdom with electricity networks extending over many thousands of kilometers across the vast reaches of the country.