Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation (Kahramaa) was established in 2000 to plan and implement projects in the power and water sector in place of the Electricity & Water Ministry, which was dissolved in 1997.

In 2002, Kahramaa outsourced the production of electricity and water to Qatar Electricity & Water Company (QEWC). Kahramaa earns income selling power and water to residential, commercial and industrial consumers, and is the sole owner of Qatar’s transmission and distribution system and the sole operator for its power and water sector.

The utility provider is headquartered in Doha, and its president is Essa bin Hilal al-Kuwari.

Kahramaa’s main areas of activity include creating power and water purchase agreements and providing technical and business support for the set-up of generation and desalination ventures. In addition to building and operating the country’s electricity and water transmission and distribution infrastructure, the company establishes plans and programmes for the development of future electricity and water distribution networks, and creates regulations, standards and codes of practice for power and water supplies to buildings and facilities.

Kahramaa estimates that Qatar will equire an additional 2,100MW of power generation capacity by 2018

Qatar’s private power programme is based on the single-buyer model, with Kahramaa purchasing all of the power and water output of independent power project (IPP) and independent water and power project (IWPP) plants for a period of 25 years on a take-or-pay basis. Qatar Petroleum supplies the fuel for the facilities.

Despite Qatar experiencing some of the highest growth rates in electricity and water consumption in the region over the past 10 years, Kahramaa has not only managed to ensure demand has been met, but has also built up one of the biggest reserve margins in the GCC.

Even though power demand growth has regularly exceeded 10 per cent in recent years, Qatar’s installed capacity of 8,761MW was comfortably able to deal with the peak usage of 6,255MW recorded in 2012.

However, despite the country’s current healthy reserve margin, Kahramaa is aware that with demand for electricity continuing to grow by 10-12 per cent a year up to 2018, it must push ahead with several major schemes.

Kahramaa estimates that Qatar will require an additional 2,100MW of power generation capacity by 2018. In June 2013, the utility provider invited expressions of interest for the first new IWPP in the country since 2008, to cover the additional 2,000MW generating capacity required between 2013 and 2018.

Kahramaa has overseen the development of one of the Gulf’s most active power transmission and distribution sectors in recent years, with QR30bn ($8.6bn) spent on upgrading and expanding infrastructure in the period 2005-12.