People take photos in front of the FIFA World Cup 2022 Qatar countdown clock in Doha, Qatar on October 7, 2022, ahead of the FIFA 2022 World Cup soccer competition. Photo: AFP

Chinese companies are contributing to the green football World Cup in Qatar, and the gas-rich Gulf nation has inaugurated its first solar power plant, domestic news portal CGTN reported on Wednesday.

The 800-megawatt (mW) solar farm in al-Kharsaah, west of the capital Doha, is one of the biggest in the Middle East and was connected to the grid at full capacity on Tuesday.

The project, developed by a consortium involving Total, Marubeni and Chinese companies, will provide electricity that can meet 10 percent of Qatar's peak demand and will tremendously boost the share of renewable energy sources in Qatar's energy mix, CGTN reported.

The solar plant, with a price tag of $417 million, is Qatar's fist non-fossil-fuel power plant, marking a milestone in the country's new energy development. It has 2 million solar panels, with all the equipment sourced from China. 

Chinese solar giant LONGi, which provided all the modules for the project, said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Wednesday that the company fully supports the country's commitment to hosting a carbon neutral World Cup.

Qatar, one of the world's biggest producers of liquefied natural gas, aims to pursue sustainable development under its "National Vision 2030" policy.
 
The project, which is part of that vision, is expected to provide an annual 1.8 billion kilowatt hours of clean energy, meeting the electricity consumption needs of some 300,000 households and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 900,000 tons.

Other Chinese companies have also contributed to the country's drive toward green development.

Infrastructure giant China Railway Construction Corp built the Lusail World Cup stadium, images of which have been printed on Qatar currency. The company said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Wednesday that the stadium uses water recycling and seawater desalting technology, unlike traditional stadiums.

Also, China Energy Engineering Corp said on Tuesday that it had won a contract to build a 2.6 gigawatt (gW) solar power plant in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, one of the world's leading oil producers, is expected to deploy about 5.1 GW of solar capacity between 2022 and 2031.