Qatar, a power surplus country, can now hope to comfortably export electricity to neighbouring GCC countries through the regional grid as power generation here has gone up by 1,000 megawatts (MW).
The 1,000 megawatts have already been released into the transmission network of the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) by Mesaieed Power Company’s plant in the Mesaieed Industrial City.
The first phase of the plant has been commissioned with 1,000 megawatts of electricity being produced and fed into Kahramaa’s transmission network.
This was announced by Abdul Majeed Shihab Al Riyahi, vice-chairman and CEO of Mesaieed Power Company (MPC).
The total production capacity of the company’s plant is 2,700 MW but in the first phase, the targeted production was 1,000 MW. Current production (1,000 MW) is 15 percent of the total power available with Kahramaa.
The plant will achieve its full 2,700 MW capacity by April next year, the CEO said. Kahramaa is the power distributor in the country.
“We will be providing the surplus to the country so it can comfortably export power to neighbouring countries through the GCC grid,” he added. There will be no power cuts in the country any more.
The plant was inaugurated in August 2008 at a total cost of $2.3bn (QR9bn). MPC is a joint stock company in which the country’s main utility producer Qatar Electricity and Water Company (Kahrabaa) holds a 40 percent stake, Qatar Petroleum (QP) 20 percent, and the remaining 40 percent equity is with Japan’s Marubeni Corporation.
Qatar’s power generation capacity is expected to reach a staggering 9,000 MW by the year 2012.
The Mesaieed power plant is the fourth independent project in the country in the power and water desalination sector which has been witnessing a privatisation drive for the past 10 years.
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=September2009&file=Local_News2009092311116.xml
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