Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) President Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, said Qatar can produce its needs of electricity and water, stressing that electricity and water supply wasn’t affected by the siege.
Speaking during the second edition of Kahramaa’s Forum for Creativity and Innovation, Al Kuwari said the corporation was able to tackle the siege thanks to its strategic inventory as well as its flexibility in offering tenders and moving to alternative markets in a very short time. He revealed Kahramaa’s intention to sign contracts with new countries to compensate for the besieging Gulf markets.
He also said that the Gulf electric linkage agreements are ongoing and weren’t affected by the siege.
Through the high technology that it has, Al Kuwari said, Qatar now competes Japan and Singapore in the ability to control water leakage, with the rate of water leakage now in Qatar’s network standing at 4 percent. He added that the corporation would not have reached this ratio if it hadn’t been for creativity because technology is available for all but the ability to apply them and achieve such results requires creative thought.
Al Kuwari said groundwater is available in Qatar, partly used for agriculture and the remainder is a strategic inventory. He noted that Kahramaa is currently working on providing irrigation water by using solar power to desalinate groundwater. If the idea succeeds commercially, it will be a huge boost to the issue of food security, he said.
As for Kahramaa’s implementation of innovative thought, the achieved results and the challenges in which creativity can help, Al Kuwari said the human element is the most important thing and the corporation has focused on having the capacity to develop that element through innovative and creative thought out of the conventional scope.
The Kahramaa president addressed smart cities, which relies on communications technology, saying that the corporation has come a long way in meter readings with more than 20,000 smart meters fixed and the rest are being replaced and connected to a contact center.
On renewable energy, Al Kuwari said the company has a project to produce nearly 500 megawatt of electricity through solar power and is working to transform homes into production hubs of renewable energy.
He highlighted the issue of providing materials and equipment for the corporation, noting that the agreement that it will sign tomorrow with Qatar Development Bank on manufacturing in the electricity sector and encouraging investors, especially Qataris, to provide manufacturing in the electricity sector.
