The country is set to shift away from fossil fuel energy and is getting ready start building the country’s largest solar power plant in a month.
The solar power project is a joint venture between Qatar Electricity and Water Company and Qatar Petroleum, and is just the beginning of a larger project aimed to cut Qatar’s dependency on fossil fuels drastically.
The project is scheduled to kick off this April 30, when ground will break for the construction of a 200 megawatt solar power plant that is expected to be delivering electricity to Qatari homes and businesses by 2020, 3 years from now.
The project is claimed to start producing 200 megawatts as a first phase, with reports hinting to a later expansion project, making the plant able of producing up to 500 megawatts.
The project will be built by Siraj Power, a joint venture between Qatar Electricity and Water Company and Qatar Petroleum. Siraj Power enjoys a capital base of half a billion dollars, 60% of which come from Qatar Electricity and Water Company while Qatar Petroleum covered the remaining 40%.
There’s a larger vision behind the project. Authorities are eyeing a huge investment in solar power and hope to have the facilities and infrastructure able to produce 1,800 megawatts by 2020. That amount of energy would contribute as much as 16% of the country’s total power production.
There have been several rumors about auctions for massive solar power projects in the country, but no major developments have happened yet.
However, the country has a long-term vision with solar power plants. By year 2030, the country hopes to have the capacity to produce 10 gigawatts of solar power, which is a whole lot more than most countries in the world produce.
