DOHA: Qatar National Vision goes in the direction of green energy, taking solar energy as the main driver of a process that involves the whole GCC region. This was the point from which a wide discussion opened up during the Qatar-Korea Seminar on Renewable Energy held in the Diplomatic Club yesterday.
Chang See jeong, the Ambassador of Korea, opened the seminar saying "Qatar is blessed with abundant sunshine which makes it an ideal country for the use of renewable resources, especially solar ones. Having more than 10 hours of day light explains the potentials of exploiting solar energy in Qatar".
Qatar is between the countries with the highest CO2 emission per capita with 58 tonnes of CO2/capita, nearly three times more the United States. The emission problem will get every year more urgent as the energy demand increases of 6.5 percent in Qatar, against a world average increase of only 2 percent. The alchemy of these two factors makes renewable energy the right answer to both the need of cleaning the country from CO2 emissions and of providing more energy.
Omar Al Kuwari, CEO of GreenGulf Inc, pointed out various elements that make solar energy particularly feasible for Qatar. Besides the high sunlight climate which is the fuel of renewable energy, the advantages of using solar energy in Qatar are that this energy is scalable, requires limited supporting infrastructure which is important for a small country like Qatar and provides a predictable production of energy that depends only on solar irradiation.
Above these factors, Al Kuwari also showed that from the government perspective, renewable energies are not as expensive as some experts have argued. In fact the subsidies provided to renewable energy investments and the taxes applied by the States on oil and gas fill the gap that is between the 7.8 cents/kilowatt per hour of the natural gas and the 15-30 cents/kilowatt per hour of the solar energy, turning green energy as an interesting and profitable option. "Even today from the government perspective there is no big difference between producing solar energy and oil and gas, and this trend will continue to go down based on technology, scale manufacturing and the fact that oil price is not coming down any time soon" said Al Kuwari.
"The government has to develop a long term energy plan and build up a clear leadership by providing financial support for landmark projects," Al Kuwari added. In this sense Korea could be a enlightening example: 'Korea Vision 2015' aims to turn the country into the world top five nation in the renewable energy market with a 30 percent international market share of solar and wind energies. As representatives of the Korea Institute of Energy Research have explained, the financial support and tax incentives in Korea are clear in the direction of green energies. For an example, the Daegu Power Tower Project's 60 percent of total budget has been covered by the Korean government.
If the government makes specific laws and regulations, the market immediately reacts in the direction pointed by the government. The GCC countries are building up one grid network that means one renewable energy market for the GCC countries. Saudi Arabia announced 10 percent green energy target by 2020, Kuwait plans to generate 5 percent of electricity demand from green energy by 2020, Abu Dhabi 7 percent, Oman has a tender for a major solar power plant that will produce 250 MW.
"Up to 5 GW of installed solar capacity within 10 years is possible in Qatar. We look forward for that to happen," said Al Kuwari.
© The Peninsula 2011
