Tell us about the role and objectives of KAHRAMAA with regard to its responsibility towards Qatar and efforts to achieve the objectives of Vision 2030?
The concept of social responsibility is deeply entrenched in all of KAHRAMAA's business activities, under the guidance of senior management, viz. HE Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, the Minister of Energy Industry and HE Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, President of KAHRAMAA, and stems from our responsibility towards the community.

KAHRAMAA's main responsibility is to provide sustainable resources for electricity and water for the benefit of the nation, thus improving the quality of life for generations to come, in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030 that calls for "environmental management and protection so as to ensure harmony and consistency with economic and social development."

KAHRAMAA is committed to achieve its essential goal of strengthening the capacity of the infrastructure of electricity and water sectors in the country. As such, it has developed a strategic goal to promote and spread a culture of rationalisation of electricity and water resources.

In this framework KAHRAMAA established the Department of Conservation and Energy Efficiency in October 2011, to manage the rationalisation and raise the efficiency of usage of electricity and water. This will contribute to the reduction of waste through the application of Rationalisation Law No. 26 for the year 2008 and invite all groups and sectors of society to cooperate in keeping our vital natural resources sustainable through effective projects and activities applied through the Tarsheed programmes and campaigns. These were launched in April 2012, under the slogan " Keep Qatar Pulsing!", with the patronage of HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Heir Apparent.

You recently celebrated the first anniversary of the Tarsheed campaign. What results were achieved so far?
Tarsheed succeeded during its first year in raising community awareness. This was measured through a number of polls, implementing the latest methods and studies, which also highlighted areas to be encouraged and pitfalls to be avoided in the coming years.

It also succeeded in building a strong alliance with many representatives from different sectors in the state. This success was fueled by KAHRAMAA's commitments as the leading regulatory in the state. Besides its contribution towards achieving the objectives of overall development, Tarsheed was keen from the start to have the flexibility to evolve and live up to the national strategic programme that will be implemented in collaboration with all partners in society. This is in addition to laying the first building blocks for many new projects, as the first year was the year of the development of the road map to achieve the objectives of conservation and energy efficiency on sound scientific basis.

What role does the society, at large, needs to play towards the success of the Tarsheed campaign?
I invite everyone, even ordinary citizens, to interact more and participate with the programmes of Tarsheed. Change starts from us, and attention to small things like not leaving lights, electrical appliances and computers on when not in use, using a bucket instead of a hose when washing the car, quickly repairing leaks, installating time-indicator sensors to adjust exterior lighting, etc and most importantly instilling a culture of conservation in our children from an early age to create a generation capable of achieving the targeted development and sustainability, all makes a great contribution to the campaign.

The national per capita consumption of water and electricity is still among the highest in the world, how do you confront this?
Unfortunately our per capita rate of consumption of water and electricity is one of the highest in the world. But we have identified the way forward in tackling each issue.

Water
We have begun the implementation of many programmes to achieve one of the objectives of Tarsheed campaign during the next five years, namely, to decrease the average water consumption per capita by 35% through the implementation of a number of important projects:

The establishment of role models in the fields of rationalisation and environmental sustainability across all sectors.

Implementation of water conservation projects for bulk consumers who consume close to 23% of the total water consumption in the country.

Carrying out technical studies towards completing a number of projects, including the retrofit project of water-saving devices.

We are also preparing to announce a draft for energy efficiency in government buildings and important strategic projects during the year 2013. A public tender will be launched, dedicated to equipping schools and mosques with conservation tools which will cut around 4% of the total water consumption.

Energy-efficiency projects
Among the more prominent projects, is the application of the energy management systems based on ISO standards that will allow KAHRAMAA to start a system granting license to work as an "officer of energy efficiency" for specialists in the field. This new initiative led by Tarsheed will monitor and improve the energy efficiency of applications and rationalise the use of water in all sectors in the country.

On a parallel level, KAHRAMAA works periodically to update the specifications for installations in public buildings, with the successful cooperation of responsible parties like the Specifications and Standardisation Authority at the Ministry of the Environment.

We also started several projects that will reduce per capita electricity consumption by 20% over the next five years as well as reduce carbon emissions in all KAHRAMAA projects.

Energy-efficiency rating for air conditioners
We are currently studying energy efficiency systems of all air-conditioners here to adopt an efficiency classification system to ban the entry of non-energy-efficient ACs in the country. This has a significant impact in reducing the consumption of electric power. The air-conditioners account for a large proportion of total energy consumption, reaching up to 60%, especially during the summer months. We have embarked on a system for labelling the characteristics of economic and energy efficient ACs to classify them according to their efficiency in energy consumption.

The consumer can select the ideal air conditioners to use through the labelling system, which consists of five categories, ranging from one star to five stars. Purchase of a machine with one star rating, which is the minimum (8.5 efficiency ratio), allows reduction of energy consumption by about 12% compared with a non-classified one. The percentage of reduction in energy consumption when using an AC which holds a five-star rating is 32% or more.

This shift towards more economical devices in energy consumption enhances the state's efforts to reduce harmful CO2 emissions by 700,000 tons by 2017.

Sustainable buildings and conservation retrofit tools
In this regard, we are cooperating with several groups and sectors to transform all state buildings to energy-efficient buildings. The coordination is continuous, and an annual contest will be announced for sustainable buildings in the country to reward committed entities and provide examples of successful role models.
KAHRAMAA have recently completed a cooperation agreement with Barwa Real Estate & Qatar Green Building Council to implement Baytna experiment of building energy-efficient villas.

Raising the power factor
We also studied the environmental and financial returns of  lifting power factor in Qatar to 0.9 or, better still, to 0.85 and its application has started from the date of announcement of the amendments in KAHRAMAA's installations, regulations and standards. The power factor will be monitored for older participants and high-consumption violators in the industrial sector. As indicted earlier, we will study the management of loads in industrial sector buildings so that they adhere to the law passed in this regard, which will return large revenues towards the provision of state resources. It is also beneficial to the environment as will reduce the rate of carbon emissions by 370,000 tons over five years.

Phasing out high-glow, inefficient lamps
The project aims to stop the use of high-glow lamps as these may cause fires as a results of the high temperatures they operate at, it addition to consuming a high  amount of energy when compared with energy-saving lamps. We are directing construction offices to stop using these lamps for newly built or designed buildings in addition to stopping the import of such bulbs. The first phase is to ban the import of 100 watts and 75 watts lamps, followed by a second phase to stop importing bulbs of 60 watts capacity, followed by a third phase to stop 40 watt bulbs from being brought in. The application of this programme will see CO2 reductions of 640,000 tons within the next four years.

Renewable energy
For renewable energy, we have policies and major plans that will give us access to reliable electricity generation. The most prominent pilot project currently being executed by KAHRAMAA exploits unused spaces such as roof tops and reservoir tops at KAHRAMAA for the production of solar energy, thus meeting 2% of the state's energy needs by 2020.

We are also studying the modified requirements meant to encourage subscribers to install solar water heaters in homes and shops, create incentives for projects that adopt alternative energy and develop specifications for connecting solar panels to KAHRAMAA's network. We also encourage research and development in the potential and applications of alternative energy, especially solar ones.

What was the scale of the coordination between you and other parties in achieving the goals of the campaign?
In terms of community partnerships, we have succeeded in building a strategic partnership between Tarsheed and a number of ministries, public sector bodies, private sector companies and institutions of civil society that has resulted in the signing of several memoranda of understanding as follows:
1. Signing of a cooperation of agreement between KAHRAMAA and Barwa Real Estate and Qatar Green Building Council to implement an unique experiment in the field of sustainable construction

2. The signing of a pilot programme between KAHRAMAA and Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, to make provisions for electricity produced from solar energy as a component of the Smart Grid Development Project in Qatar.

3. The signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Qatar National Programme for Food Security for food and water security.

4. The signing of a MoU with the Ministry of Awqaf to spread awareness in mosques and religious centres.

5. Signing of a MoU  with Qatar Foundation to spread awareness and community development through training, lectures, seminars and various other activities.

6. The signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Qatar Stars League in order to emphasise and apply the concept of sustainability in sports stadiums and buildings.

7. The signing of a MoU with the University of Qatar to jointly work in on research and studies in the fields of energy-efficiency, in general and renewable energy, in particular.

8. A partnership towards the research on energy efficiency and rationalisation with the Mitsubishi Research Center and Japan's Chubu International Company under the umbrella of the Joint Economic Committee between Qatar and Japan.

9. Signing of a memorandum of understanding with Unilever to raise awareness of cooperation through community support programmes

10.Signing of MoUs with several other entities is currently being explored, including one with Qatar Olympic Committee, the Supreme Council of Health and the Supreme Education Council and others.

How do you intend to convince citizens and residents of the importance of conservation of energy sources?
We use all existing languages  in Qatar in order to reach everyone. We also use all means of communication, with a focus on TV, radio and social media.

Tarsheed also has an integrated programme for our main targets - school and college students - in cooperation with the SEC, as well as the Qatar Foundation and Qatar University.

We will start  a programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Guidance to reach citizens and residents through Friday sermons at mosques and affiliated centres.

We have urged citizens to participate, interact and instill the thoughts and culture of conservation through special events such as World Earth Day and Arab Water Day.

You have announced a new park to raise awareness of environmentally friendly causes in the year 2014. Tell us more about it?
The Awareness Park project is located in the Thumama area, which serves as an 'Edutainment' museum showcasing the importance of electricity and water, their sources, generation, transfer and distribution operations.

The project has already received a Green Buildings Certificate at a green building solutions conference in Doha in 2011.

Project objectives

1. The project is designed to be a centre for dissemination of knowledge and awareness in an interesting, fun and innovative way.

2. Raise the level of consumer awareness on the importance of adopting preventive steps to reduce the consumption of electricity and water with a particular focus on school and university students.

It is worth mentioning that the project will be completed on 22 April 2014, on the eve of the second anniversary of the Tarsheed campaign.

Targets and goals
1. Achieve a reduction of 20% of electricity consumption and 35% of water consumption through targeted programmes, without affecting the level of services or the quality of life enjoyed by the citizens and residents of the state.

2. Building on the corporate identity of the national promotional programme, Tarsheed, by launching integrated and engaging media and advertising campaigns, whose objectives and visual identity provides an effective platform for communication.

3. Application of Conservation Law No. 26 for the year 2008 to build qualified national cadres to enforce the law, and the development of proposals necessary to draft laws to strengthen the legislative base and legal support of Tarsheed programmes.

4. Revise and update the regulations and related specifications for installations in buildings that lead to raising the efficiency in the use of water and electric power in the state.

5. Build an interactive relationship with all partners in the society through the development and implementation of awareness and education programmes.

6. Building a strategic partnership between KAHRAMAA and ministries of state, public sector bodies, private sector companies and institutions of civil society, in order to spread the culture of conservation.

© Qatar Today 2013