Doha: Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has announced the successful financial closure and completion of all needed financial arrangements with the international financers who involved in financing the Siraj-1 solar power plant project, the first of its kind in Qatar to produce electricity using photovoltaic cells with a capacity of 800 MW.
The project’s company (Siraj-1 Company) has obtained the senior loans, which had been provided by “Japan Bank for International Cooperation” (JBIC) and “Mizuho Corporate Bank” to finance the plant.
After the project’s financial close, the Levelized Electricity Cost (LEC) was set at 5.281 Dirham (1.449 US cents) per KW/h, which is the lowest price in the world for these types of projects.
Achieving this competitive price is evidence for the trust of the investors and developers in Qatari market as well as implementing the latest and most innovative engineering solutions to build and operate the solar plant. Last January, Kahramaa had signed the agreements of Siraj-1 large-scale solar power plant to produce electricity using photovoltaic technology.
According to the agreements, Kahramaa, which is the owner and operator of the transmission and distribution system of electricity and water in Qatar, will purchase the electrical energy produced from the plant, while Siraj-1 must construct and operate the project. Siraj-1 Company is owned by Siraj Energy (60 percent) and a consortium of Japan’s Marubeni Corporation and France’s Total Solar International (40 percent).
The project will be constructed, owned and operated for 25 years. Then, the assets will be transferred to Kahramaa according to the system of Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer (BOOT) that is known globally, committed to the principle of public and private partnerships as well as to encourage foreign investments in major projects.
The project will be constructed with a total cost of QR1.7bn at a 10 square kilometer land plot in Al Kharsaah area west of Doha that has been allocated for Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation , in accordance to the Amiri Decree no. (19) for the year 2018. The plant will have a total capacity of 800 MW which equals about 10 percent of Qatar’s current peak electricity demand. 350 MW will be linked to the grid as a first phase in the second quarter of 2021.
