TotalEnergies announces the startup of the largest solar power plant in the Middle East

The Al Kharsaah solar power plant in Qatar developed by TotalEnergies and its partners QatarEnergy, and Marubeni has now started operations.

The ceremony to mark the completion of the construction works and the startup of the plant, which is now connected to the national grid was attended by His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Located 80 km West of Doha, the Al Kharsaah plant is the first large scale photovoltaic plant in Qatar with 800 MWp installed solar capacity. The plant was constructed on a 1000-hectare terrain, equivalent to approximately 1400 football pitches, and integrates 2 million high-efficiency bifacial modules mounted on single-axis trackers.

Al Kharsaah can supply 10 percent of the country's peak power consumption and will avoid 26 million tons of CO2 emissions during its lifetime. The plant started supplying electrical power to Qatar’s electricity grid last June, marking the startup of the 400 MW first phase of the 800 MW plant. Full capacity was reached by the end of the second phase.

“After our recent entry in the giant LNG projects NFE and NFS alongside QatarEnergy, we are proud to announce today the start-up of the Al Kharsaah solar plant. This giant project, which contributed to the sustainability roadmap of Qatar, demonstrates once again TotalEnergies' ability to support producing countries in their energy transition by combining natural gas production and solar energy to meet the growing demand for electricity,” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TotalEnergies.  

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, His Excellency Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs and the President and CEO of QatarEnergy highlighted some of Qatar’s efforts towards achieving its sustainability targets, stressing that “the Al-Kharsaah plant is one of the country's strategic initiatives to build projects that contribute to reducing gas and thermal emissions, thus achieving about a million-ton reduction in annual carbon dioxide emissions.”

The power plant has been developed and is operated by Siraj 1, which is jointly owned 40 percent by the Consortium formed by TotalEnergies (49%) and Marubeni (51%) and 60 percent by QatarEnergy Renewable Solutions. The project includes a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement between Siraj 1 and the power grid operator Kahramaa.

The inauguration of the Al Kharsaah plant follows the recent selection of TotalEnergies as QatarEnergy's first international partner for the North Field East (NFE) and North Field South (NFS) liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects. Participation in these projects will enable TotalEnergies to add 3.5 Mt/year of production to its global LNG portfolio by 2028, in line with the Company's goal of increasing the share of natural gas in its sales mix to 50 percent by 2030.