QatarEnergy reserves land for Al Kharsaah solar plant expansion: Energy Minister

QatarEnergy has reserved land for future expansion of the 800MW-peak solar plant in Al Kharsaah, said HE the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi. “The area around Al Kharsaah has actually been reserved for expansion. We do have expansion capability. There is a lot of land around Al Kharsaah for possible expansion,” HE al-Kaabi told Gulf Times Tuesday. “We believe solar technology will actually become more efficient and cheaper with time. And may be the most important element for us is to try and reduce the size of the land that we need (for such projects). Qatar has scarcity of land… and we are a very small country. And you can see this (Al Kharsaah) is a giant project as far as the land is concerned. I think with time the requirement for land will shrink. “Regarding wind, we actually started a project in 2008 as part of exploring renewable options. In Qatar, we don’t have a steady flow of wind. To have a sustainable solution for electricity, we should have consistent velocity of wind over a specific period of time. So, wind does not work in Qatar and we are not looking at that,”HE al-Kaabi explained. The minister highlighted some of Qatar’s efforts towards achieving its sustainability targets, stressing that the “Al Kharsaah plant is one of the country's strategic initiatives to build projects that contribute to reducing gas and thermal emissions, thus achieving about a million-tonne reduction in annual carbon dioxide emissions.” The Al Kharsaah Solar PV Power Plant is owned by a joint venture between affiliates of QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions (60%), Marubeni (20.4%) and TotalEnergies (19.6%).QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions is QatarEnergy’s investment arm specialising in renewable and sustainable energy investments and projects. QatarEnergy is consolidating its position in the renewables business and is delivering amid-term target of generating 5GW of solar power by 2035 as part of its Sustainability Strategy.