Kahramaa President Essa Bin Hilal Al Kuwari (right), with Mohammed Ali Al Mohannadi (left), Director of Public Relations and Communications Department and Manager of Production Planning, Water Resources, & Business Development, at Kahramaa Head office, ye
DOHA: Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has announced that the corporation will request for bidding for country’s first large scale 700MW solar Photovoltaic (PV) power plant by year-end.
The QR2bn power plant will be spreading over an area of 10 sq km in Doha west near Al Kharsaah. “Kahramaa has completed the pre-qualification of 16 international solar power developers within the process of Kahramaa Request for Bids (RFB) for Qatar’s first large scale solar Photovoltaic (PV) power plant planned to be released before the end of 2018,” said Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, the President of Kahramaa.
Al Kuwari was speaking at a press conference yesterday at the headquarters of Kahramaa to announce the project. “In the first stage, 350MW electricity will be connected to the grid by 2020 to achieve the objective of Qatar National Development Strategy (QNDS) 2018 – 2022,” said Al Kuwari.
“The environmental aspects were observed in coordination with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment,” said Al Kuwari. He said that the project will be based on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) concept for the encouragement of investment in large scale projects.
“The project is structured as Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) for 25 years, where the ownership will be transferred to Kahramaa after the end of the term. Siraj Energy is participating in the project as a Strategic National Investor,” he added.
Speaking about the cost of the project, Al Kuwari said that project will be implemented under BOOT system in which Kahramaa will buy the electricity from the project developers.
“The project will cost approximately QR2bn. Kahramaa will not pay the cost of the project but it will pay for electricity units which it will buy for over 25 years,” said Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, the President of Kahramaa, adding that the bidder will offer the lowest prices of electricity unit.
He said that the solar plant comes within Kahramaa plans to diversify power generation resources and increase renewable energy percentage in Qatar’s energy mix. Kahramaa President said: “Since our country has an abundance of solar radiation, and from monitoring the recent developments in solar panel manufacturing along with their decreasing costs, and from studying the natural gas that can potentially be saved, Kahramaa has decided to go forward with a utility-scale solar power plant.”
Al Kuwari added that the project comes in implementation of the higher directives of the Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to reduce dependence on oil and gas to achieve the economic diversity, and in line with the economic and environmental development pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030. “Kahramaa attracted international companies and consortia with wide experience in the development of solar plants, and 16 international developers have been pre-qualified,” said Al Kuwari.
He said that under this project it is expected to get competitive power generation prices, save natural gas used in traditional power generation, along with reducing carbon emissions and preserving the environment.
“It is one of the objectives of the national program for conservation and energy efficiency “Tarsheed” for the reduction of 7 percent of harmful carbon emissions in Qatar. Since its launch in 2012, Tarsheed helped reduce 10.6 tonnes of carbon emissions,” said Al Kuwari.
