Qatar General Electricity and Water Corp (Kahramaa) announced a public tender to establish Qatar first large-scale solar Photovoltaic (PV) power plant will be released before 2018-end.
The President of Kahramaa Eng. Essa Hilal al-Kuwari announced in a press release that the corporation attracted international companies and consortiums with wide experience in the development of solar plants, and 16 international developers have been prequalified.
He added that the project comes in implementation of the directives of His Highness the Amir 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.
"As a first stage, 350 MW will be connected to the grid by 2020 in achievement of the strategic objective set in Qatar National Development Strategy (QNDS) 2018-2022," he said.
He added that a 10sq km plot of land located in west of Doha near Al-Kharsaah area has been allotted for the construction of the solar power plant, with a total capacity of at least 700 MW.
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 Power Energy participates in the project as a strategic national investor.
Under this project, competitive power generation prices are expected to 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 programme for conservation and energy efficiency "Tarsheed" for the reduction of 7% of harmful carbon emissions in Qatar.
Since it was launched by Kahramaa in 2012, Tarsheed managed to reduce 10.6 tons of emissions.
