By: AGBI

State-backed QatarEnergy has awarded a contract to South Korea’s Samsung Construction and Trading Corporation to develop a 2,000 megawatt (MW) solar power plant in Dukhan, 80km west of Doha.

The solar power plant will be developed in two phases by Samsung C&T Engineering & Construction Group, with the first phase expected to start dispatching 1,000MW to the state-owned Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) grid by the end of 2028.

The project will reach its full capacity of 2,000MW by mid-2029, QatarEnergy said in a statement. 

About 2.7 million panels will be used across the 27sq km Dukhan project site. The contract value is estimated at 1.46 trillion won ($1.1 billion), South Korea’s Asia Business Daily reported.

The company’s CEO Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said the project is part of the company’s sustainability strategy, which aims to generate more than 4,000MW of renewable energy by 2030.

The Dukhan, Al-Kharsaah, Mesaieed and Ras Laffan solar power plants will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.7 million tonnes annually, contributing up to 30 percent of Qatar’s total peak electricity demand, he said.