Qatar General Electricity and Water Corp (Kahramaa) has revealed the 800 MW solar tender concluded last week delivered a final price of QAR0.0571/kWh ($0.016/kWh) – the lowest winning bid ever registered in an auction for large scale renewable energy.

The utility said the winning consortium, formed by French oil giantTotal and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp, had initially submitted a bid of QAR0.0636/kWh.

“Kahramaa has signed the… power purchase agreement (PPA) with the project company, with an aim to achieve financial close of the project in May 2020,” said the utility. “Kahramaa is pleased to note that based on current financial market indices, the equivalent LEC [levelized energy cost] is QAR0.0571/kWh ($0.01567/kWh), which is one of the world’s lowest for projects of this type.”

If the utility’s five-decimal-point calculation is correct, the bid beats the previous world record of €0.0147/kWh ($0.016) submitted by French developer Akuo Energy for 150 MW of solar generation capacity in Portugal’s first PV auction. Saudi energy giant ACWA Power bid $0.0169/kWh in the tender for the fifth phase of the huge Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai.

The project tendered by Kahramaa will be 60% owned by the Siraj Energy joint venture formed by Qatar Petroleum and the utility, and 40% by the winning consortium. The facility will provide the Qatari utility with electricity under a 25-year PPA.

For those who have come in late… Qatar has been doing a lot of research in renewable energy. For eg:

1. Qatar has been converting its Karwa (Public Transportation) buses to CNG since 2013. It will convert 100% by 2022 FIFA World Cup.
2. It has done a very in-depth research on Passivehause (passive house) technology where air-conditioned houses are run on power from solar panel. 
3. It has shifted a lot of its signal systems to be run on solar power.
4. It is shifting its street lights and foothpath lights and lights in the parks to LED powered by solar panels.
5. It has run quite a few experiments on wind turbine. But this technology seems not to be catching on and seems to have lost the race to solar panels. The heavy and unpredictable winds in Qatar suit vertical wind turbines rather than horizontal wind turbines. Vertical wind turbines are very eye-catching if installed in parks and gardens rather than on towers.
6. Qatar has also been working on an hybrid car called Katara or Qatara which will have a range of 1,000kms or double the range of normal cars. See Here
7. Qatar has enough reflected sunlight during 12 hours of daylight that even if solar panels are mounted upside down on car parking areas… it will still be able to generate electricity.

Qatar has everything that is required to become a renewable energy GIANT!!!