QNA
Doha
Turkish Anadolu Agency (AA) highlighted Qatar’s successful entry into the renewable energy market as a strong competitor.
In its report, AA highlighted Qatar’s remarkable development in the domain of renewable energy, having launched the third-largest solar power plant in the world a month before the start of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
AA noted Qatar’s readiness to double its production of solar energy in 2024 upon the completion of two new power plants, as well as the completion of the largest blue ammonia plant in the world, with investments amounting to about USD 1.2 billion.
AA’s report said that although Qatar is the second largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in the world, it entered the competitive market for the production of renewable energies in 2022, in conjunction with hosting of the World Cup, which is described as the latest environmentally friendly edition in the history of the tournament. Qatar launched the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 together with the launch of the largest solar energy production plants in the Gulf region, as well as the world’s largest blue ammonia production project, in addition to its intention to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Egypt and Britain to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia.
The report added that Qatar succeeded in inaugurating its first solar power plant on October 18, about a month before the beginning of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, with a production capacity of 800 megawatts, or the equivalent of 10 percent of the countrys peak consumption of electric power, equivalent to the consumption of 55,000 homes according to official data.
This solar power plant can reduce about 26 million tons of harmful carbon emissions throughout the project period, at a rate of one million tons annually.
The report reviewed the Al Kharsaah Solar PV Independent Power Producer (IPP) Project, which is located 80 kilometres west of the capital, Doha. The project contains 1.8 million solar panels distributed over an area of 10 square kilometres or the equivalent of an area of 1,400 football fields.
The power plant is advanced technologically, where it follows the movement of the sun from east to west, and uses robots to clean the panels at night using treated water to enhance their efficiency.
The cost of the project amounted to about USD 476 million, a partnership among the QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions (60 percent) and the Japanese Marubeni company (20.4 percent), and French TotalEnergies (19.6 percent).
The report expected that Qatar would not stop at this point. In fact, in August of last year, it announced its intention to produce more than 5,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2035, by expanding the Al Kharsaah station, as well as establishing two huge solar power stations.
QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions signed an agreement with the South Korean Samsung C&T Corporation to implement a project of two solar power plants at an investment cost of more than USD 630 million. The total production of the two stations will be 875 megawatts, with the first to be located in Mesaieed Industrial City and to produce 417 megawatts, whereas the second will be in Ras Laffan Industrial City and will have a capacity of 458 megawatts.
The two stations are expected to enter service by 2024, which will double the country’s production of solar energy from the current
800 megawatts to 1675 megawatts.
In a related context, Qatar is preparing to enter the production stage of some solar panel components, with Qatar Solar Energy Technologies company to produce polysilicon which is used in the production of wafers from which solar cells are made.
Given the high global demand for solar panel production, Qatar wants to be one of the exporters of polysilicon.
The report suggested that Qatar leads the production of blue ammonia in the world, thanks to its huge production of gas, as it ranks second in the world in the production of liquefied gas. Blue ammonia is produced from a chemical reaction of nitrogen (which is abundant in the air) with hydrogen (which is available in water) through analysis of Electrophoresis using gas, resulting in blue ammonia.
Blue ammonia uses clean fuel that can be used to operate power plants, not to mention its well-known function as a fertilizer, as blue ammonia is offered as an alternative to hydrogen, given that it is easier to store and transport it. Blue ammonia is considered a transitional stage towards the use of cleaner green ammonia that uses renewable energies instead of gas.
In this regard, Qatar announced on August 31 its intention to build the largest blue ammonia production plant in the world, with an investment of USD 1.2 billion, provided that the plant will start operating in the first quarter of 2026; The blue ammonia plant (Ammonia-7) will capture about 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually and sequester it from the ammonia-making process.
The Anadolu Agency report stated that Qatar does not show much interest in producing hydrogen in both blue and green forms on its territory, especially since blue ammonia has better properties than it does, particularly in terms of storage and the exporting process. Nevertheless, QatarEnergy and Royal Dutch Shell signed, on Oct. 29, 2021, a joint investment agreement to invest in blue and green hydrogen projects in the UK.
In November, Arab media stated that Qatar is considering a project to produce green hydrogen and green ammonia in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE).
The AA report concluded that 2022 was a real breakthrough for clean energy projects in Qatar (solar energy and blue ammonia), especially since the country was keen on making the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 environmentally friendly.
