In less than three years, Qatar is set to have at least 3% of its car population electric, aiming to reduce the carbon footprint in the country as well as adopt and encourage eco-friendly practices in the country’s transport sector.
Qatar plans to achieve a significant environmental goal of making 3-5% of the total car population green or electric by 2022.
The move is initiated by the General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) as part of its ongoing efforts under the National Programme for Conservation and Energy Efficiency (Tarsheed). In line with Qatar National Vision 2030, the mission will be implemented with the cooperation from various stakeholders including the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MOCI) and the Ministry of Transport and Communication (MOTC).
This comes within Tarsheed’s objective to reduce the carbon (CO2) emissions rate in Qatar by 7% by 2022 in line with Qatar National Development Strategy II. In addition, it is to encourage a culture of environmental-friendly practices in the transportation sector.
Tarsheed has succeeded in reducing the consumption rate of electricity by 18% and water by 20% which contributed in reducing the rate of harmful carbon emissions to 8.5 mn tonnes, since launching the national programme from 2012 to 2016. Tarsheed has developed a new strategic goal to reduce the capita consumption of water by 15% and electricity by 8% by 2022.
According to Tarsheed, at least 400 car charging stations will be implemented across Qatar by 2022.
Charging points will be at shopping malls, residential areas, stadiums, parks and government offices. As of today, Kahramaa has opened electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at their headquarters, Kahramaa Awareness Park, Qatar Scientific Club, Alfardan Towers, The St. Regis Doha and Marsa Malaz Kempinski, The Pearl – Doha. In addition, there are two EV charging stations for buses at the headquarters of Mowasalat.
All the current EV charging stations charge vehicles for free.
In 2017, the MOTC and Kahramaa signed a joint cooperation agreement to launch the Green Car Initiative (GCI) as one of the National Program for Conservation and Energy Efficiency’s projects.
As part of the initiative, Qatar aims to have 10% of the total car population be electric cars by 2030.
As per the agreement, the MOTC will launch electric cars in its fleets of transport vehicles and buses as a strategic and eco-friendly option to reach the goal by 2030.
The most important goal of this initiative is to encourage eco-friendly cars in all sectors as well as installing and managing the infrastructure to provide these cars with energy.
This procedure will be supervised by the MOCI in cooperation with governmental agencies to provide charging stations as well as specify the most appropriate locations to construct those stations around the state. The MOCI will work on installing and managing infrastructure to provide electrical cars with energy in different levels of charging capacity (fast, medium, low).
Everyone is encouraged to support GCI, including car agencies, the airport, municipalities, shopping malls, petrol stations, hotels and operating companies for parking cars.
Author: Ola Diab
This feature is an editorial from the ‘Motoring’ section in the latest issue of Marhaba – Issue 76, which comes out in December 2019.
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