Doha: Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has completed necessary studies to operationalise Al Kharsaah solar power project.
The 800MW Al Kharsaah photovoltaic (PV) power project is the first large-scale solar power plant being developed in Qatar. The project is part of the country’s efforts to provide clean and renewable energy to protect the environment and ensure sustainability.
This came in Kahramaa's 2021 report. The planning studies to connect Qatar Petroleum’s solar power project to Mesaieed and Ras Laffan areas with a total capacity of 800 megawatts have also been completed, said the report.
Kahramaa made remarkable achievements in 2021, as it completed several major strategic projects supporting the national economy and providing the infrastructure with the highest levels of reliability in electricity network services. The projects aimed at making Qatar attractive to foreign investments and provide better services to citizens and expatriates.
As part of its keenness to constantly develop the electric transmission network, Kahramaa completed projects worth QR1.5bn during 2021. A total of 13 new power substations opened, including two stations for feeding residential areas, and 10 for strengthening and developing the network. Last year, Hamad Medical City power super substation also opened to feed the Hamad Medical City project with the capacity of 66/220/11 kV, at a total cost of QR155m.
The number of substations reached 672 until the end of November 2021 to keep pace with the construction boom and meet the needs of customers in the country. Kahramaa also succeeded in operating 33 new transformers on the electrical transmission network. A total of 27km of new overhead power lines were extended, in addition to 40.4km of high and ultra-high voltage cables that were inaugurated during this period.
The intensified maintenance works helped in reducing faults by 20.69 percent in 2021 compared to those recorded in 2020. The electricity networks continued to record outstanding levels of performance, which is evident by maintaining the rates of lost loads and lost system minutes in the rated range of the electrical transmission network, recording only 0.0451.
There was decrease in the interruption frequency index for customers, recording (0.1366) faults per customers, which represents an improvement of 13% in 2021 compared to the previous year.
In addition, the average rate of interruptions for customers decreased by 18% in 2021 compared to 2020, recording 9.099 minutes per customer. The Electricity Networks Departments were also keen to prepare municipal feeding projects for all FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 stadiums, and the number of main stations whose loads exceeded the designed capacity in the summer were reduced compared to 2020.
This is despite the increase in the maximum load of the network by about 4% over the previous year and the medium voltage cable load ratio was reduced to less than 80%.
The project to install capacitors in the electrical distribution network was awarded, implemented and operated, which aims to measure the technical losses in the network, and provide connections to new residential land divisions for citizens, which are being developed in cooperation with the Public Works Authority (Ashghal).
