GCC’s emission levels make solar energy the best option: expert

By Ramesh Mathew/Staff ReporterConsidering the alarming emissions of green house gases (GHG) in the entire GCC region, it would do Qatar a world of good if the country explored a higher application of solar energy to meet its growing requirements, climatologist and senior environmental scientist Dr Pitta Govinda Rao has said.Speaking at the Solar Qatar Summit yesterday, the senior environmental specialist at Qatar Petroleum’s Corporate Environment & Sustainable Development Department stressed the urgent need for a drastic reduction in the per capita emissions from the GCC region.While the GCC houses only 0.6% of the world population, the region’s GHG emissions is approximately 2.4%, said the climatologist while highlighting the need for the country to adopt more solar technologies to meet its growing energy needs.Quoting from studies conducted under the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) the senior specialist said one square kilometre of desert-rich Qatar received solar energy to the equivalent of 1.5 million barrels of oil per year.“Qatar’s direct normal irradiance (DNI) is 2,008 kWh/per square metre/year which is much more than what is actually required to make solar power plants feasible,” said Rao while highlighting that a DNI of 2,000 kWh/per square metre/year is considered good for solar operations.Rao said in the present circumstances photovoltaic (PV) plants would suit the requirements of the country better as it would create no emissions during generation and costs only $0.121 per kWh while gas based power would cost $0.0537 per kWh besides causing emissions.While PV generation requires about four acres of land for generating 1MW, more  land is required for operating concentrated solar plants (CSP). The speaker said the major contributors to GHG emissions in Qatar are power generation and desalination process. Elaborating further, Rao said oil/gas production and water/power generation together accounted for more than 64% of the local energy consumption and if the production of petroleum and petrochemical products are added to it the figure would cross more than three-fourth of the overall energy consumption.Rao said at the prevailing levels Qatar required more than 191mn gallons of fresh water to meet its daily needs and the estimated power generation capacity per day is close to 179 MW. The quantum of emissions happening on account of such levels of activities is too large and the country cannot afford to go on like this for long. Carbon emission from solar thermal stations is minimal (0.01-0.015 tons/MW) when compared to the emissions from gas propelled combined cycle power plants (0.5 tons/MW) and steam/coal fired power plants (0.9 tons/MW).While citing the solar advantages Rao said carbon emissions from a 50MW solar plant, working at 80% capacity could be anywhere between 3,500 and 5,250 tonnes/year. A gas fired plant of the same capacity would release no less than 175,000 tons and that of coal fired plant could be as high as 315,370 tons per year.The environmental specialist said Qatar has an average sunshine duration of 9.4 hours/day and the highest duration is close to 12 hours, usually in the month of June.