Qatar not only has the World Cup, but also the most "trench" photovoltaic power station!

Qatar not only has the World Cup, but also the most "trench" photovoltaic power station!

Recently, the World Cup in Qatar kicked off, quickly attracting the attention of the world, and became a hot topic in the street for a while!

Oil and gas have brought Qatar a steady stream of wealth, while resource extraction consumes a lot of its electricity. In fact, the electricity bill in Qatar should not be underestimated! Qatar is surrounded by the sea on three sides and is a typical peninsula country. It is very hot in summer and slightly cooler in winter. This is one of the reasons why the World Cup in Qatar was chosen to be held in winter.

Qatar, which has a typical tropical desert climate, has a flat terrain and most areas are deserts covered with sandy soil, with high temperature and dryness and little precipitation, which is very suitable for building photovoltaic power plants.

On October 18, 2022, Al Kharsaah, the first large-scale ground-mounted photovoltaic power station in Qatar's history, and the third largest single photovoltaic power station in the world, officially announced its full-capacity grid connection.

Al Kharsaah Photovoltaic Power Plant
The photovoltaic power station is located 80 kilometers west of Doha, the capital of Qatar, and covers an area of ​​1,000 hectares, which is equivalent to 1,400 football fields.

The total investment of the project exceeds 460 million US dollars. With a total installed capacity of 800MW, it can provide Qatar with about 1.8 billion kWh of photovoltaic green power every year, meeting the annual electricity consumption of about 300,000 households.

The power station uses a total of 2 million double-sided photovoltaic modules, and uses a single-axis photovoltaic tracker to track the sun around the clock. One side of the photovoltaic panel captures the direct light of the sun, and the other side captures the light reflected from the ground, which significantly increases the power generation.

It is understood that the power station can meet 10% of Qatar's peak power demand and reduce 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions during its entire life cycle.

At the same time, in order to increase power generation and reduce post-operation and maintenance costs, the photovoltaic power station is equipped with an adaptive robotic arm for cleaning photovoltaic modules.

It is worth noting that the final bidding price of the power station at that time was 1.6 cents/KWh, which broke the lowest bidding price in the history of photovoltaic power plants at that time.

The general trend of global energy transformation

As part of Qatar's "National Vision 2030", the establishment of the power station created a precedent in the field of new energy photovoltaic power generation in Qatar, greatly increased the proportion of photovoltaics in Qatar's energy consumption, reduced carbon emissions, and successfully connected to the grid for power generation before the World Cup , fulfilling Qatar's commitment to host a "carbon-neutral" World Cup.

It is reported that Total Energy, one of the developers and operators of the photovoltaic power station, will continue to cooperate with Qatar Energy Company to build new solar energy projects with a total installed capacity of 900MW for the two industrial cities of Ras Laffan and Mesaieed in Qatar.

At present, the world is facing the challenge of energy transition. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, control the degree of temperature change, and reduce dependence on fossil energy, it is very important to promote the development of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy.

Of course, the promotion of energy transformation does not rely solely on energy companies, but requires the efforts of all sectors of society. In 2021, the world will spend US$755 billion on the deployment of low-carbon energy technologies, a year-on-year increase of 27%. No matter how rich a country is, it is inseparable from the support of new energy to enhance its energy production and supply security capabilities, and the richer the country, the more it needs to combine with new energy to meet the growing demand for electricity, thereby supporting its own. energy transition.