Qatar- Power and water desalination forum opens

By Sidi Mohamed

DOHA: A two-day ‘Electricity and water desalination in Arab countries’ conference opened yesterday in the presence of Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani .

In a speech at the opening session Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada said Qatar believes that joint Arab work is the way forward for developing the Arab individual and stressed the importance of investing in electricity infrastructure to boost development.

Qatar is set to invest in improving its smart electricity grid to absorb energy from clean sources. The country under the leadership of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani achieved a 100 percent access to electricity several years ago he said.

Dr Al Sada said Qatar relies on natural gas as its only source of electricity which is the cleanest source of energy. The coming years will see the country relying on renewable energy particularly solar.

The Minister said Qatar is also focused on rationalising the use of electricity. In 2015 individual rationalised use of electricity was an average of 14 percent and an average of 17 percent for water which means the country saved QR825m on electricity and QR522m on water. This also decreased the carbon footprint by 3.5 million tonnes.

On the challenge of providing water Dr Al Sada said the Middle East is one of the driest regions in the world where the availability of water on average is 1200 cubic metres per person — much below the global average of 7000 cubic metres.

This represents a big challenge as the averages worldwide are set to half by 2050.

Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari President Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) and Chairman of Arab Union of Electricity called on the participants to come up with effective and enforceable recommendations to ensure achievement of water security and electricity for these countries.

Al Kuwari also urged attendees to complete electrical networks between Arab region’s countries internally and externally to rationalise and reduce water wastage in all types of its uses (agriculture industry and domestic) raise efficiency of water use in agriculture and review government subsidies for electricity and water.

He urged the conference to work to complete the establishment of regulatory frameworks for integration of energy and water policies to achieve the required sustainability and encourage scientific research in the areas of energy and water to cover all aspects such as production and consumption and increase renewable and new energies in power generation in particular solar and wind energy.

Al Kuwari said despite water abundance in the world for human use it is now always available in good quantity or quality at a suitable time or desired place. The geographical distribution of sources of renewable water in the world exacerbated the problem of water shortage in the Arab region which is suffering due to a scarcity of water resources as a result of climatic and natural conditions including the scarcity of rain and lack of river water.

Arab countries’ demand for water is estimated at about 261 trillion cubic metres with a gap of 42 trillion cubic metres that will rise up to 319 trillion cubic metres between 2020-2030 with a gap of 119 trillion cubic metres and then demand will go up to 393 trillion cubic metres in 2040-2050 with a gap of 194 trillion cubic metres.

Al Kuwari said desalination in the Arab region is one of the traditional solutions to reduce the gap between supply and demand particularly in the Gulf states which are suffering due to a huge shortage of water resources as most GCC countries produce 57 percent of the worldwide desalinated water.The Peninsula