BY MOHAMMAD SHOEB
DOHA: The first solar power plant of Qatar General Electricity and Water Company (Kahramaa), with 15 megawatt (MW) capacity is set to begin operation before 2016, a senior official of the utility distributor announced yesterday.
Kahramaa, as part of its efforts to promote alternative forms of energy, has plans to generate about 200MW of electricity from sunlight by 2020.
“We floated the tender for the construction of the first package of solar power plant, with a capacity of between 10 to 15MW, a couple of months ago, and construction contracts will be awarded by the first quarter of next year. The plant will start operation before 2016,” said Saleh Hamad Al Marri, Head of Renewable Energies Technologies Section at Kahramaa.
Al Marri, speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of ‘Solar Qatar Summit’, said: “Kahramaa is trying to diversify its sources of electricity, and have set a target to generate about 200MW of power by 2020. However, the target will be achieved through different packages over the next six years.”
The first solar power generation facility in an area of 100,000 square metres will be located in Duhail area. Kahramaa will need about 2msqm of open space to produce 200MW of solar power, and for that it is in the process of identifying 60 locations across the country.
“Given the high cost of land properties we are intending to build the solar power plants in dead and free areas by utilising various Kharamaa premises and other free space such as the area on top of water reservoirs,” he added.
“For solar power, we are going to use the cutting-edge smart grid technology that can guide us to optimise production by minimising the cost such as asset and labour costs.”
Asked about promoting private use of solar power units by individual households and companies, he said: “Kahramaa is working to develop a regulatory framework in this regard. Once it is complete and approved from all authorities concerned, we will announce the same publicly.”
The Peninsula
