QatarEnergy Awards EPC Contract to Samsung for Mega-Solar Power Plants

State-owned petroleum company QatarEnergy has awarded an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the industrial cities solar power project (IC Solar) to South Korean construction and engineering giant Samsung C&T. Under the contract, Samsung C & T will set up two photovoltaic (PV) solar power plants with a combined capacity of 875 MW. The plants will be established in the industrial cities of Gulf state.

QatarEnergy made the announcement at a special ceremony held in Doha, where the EPC contract between QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions and Samsung C&T was signed.

The IC Solar project has two large scale solar power plants that will come up in Mesaieed Industrial City and Ras Laffan Industrial City with an investment of QR 2.3 billion. The solar plants will begin generating electricity by the end of 2024.

The contract was signed in the presence of Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs,President and CEO of QatarEnergy Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi. Sechul Oh, President & CEO of Samsung C&T Corporation, was also present there.

Minister Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi stated on IC Solar Project of QatarEnergy, “It reaffirms our commitment towards delivery on QatarEnergy Sustainability Strategy and our mid-term target of having 5 GW of solar generated power by 2035. It also gives me great pleasure that this landmark project marks the first investment for our newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary, QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions, which will invest in and hold all our renewables and other sustainable initiatives going forward.”

The Industrial City Solar Project

As per QatarEnergy, the project will employ bifacial modules mounted on single-axis trackers. There will be cleaning robots which will operate on solar panels for removing dust and sand to minimize energy losses and further the electricity generation from the bifacial modules. The power generation capacity is divided into two industrial locations having 417 MW plant and 458 MW plant and together they would cover an area of about 10 sq km. QatarEnergy held that the project will reduce over 28 million tons of CO2 over its lifetime.

QatarEnergy said that this is the second utility-scale solar power project in the country and with IC Solar coming into operations, the renewable energy production capacity of Qatar in 2024 will swell to 1.6 GW.